(DIY) Reflexology Foot Massage Techniques | How to Relieve Foot Pain | Thrive Market

[Music] hey guys it's Jen did you know that you could give your whole body a massage just by pressing on your foot it's true it comes from the ancient Chinese medicine called reflexology which is over 2,000 years old so today's little tutorial is about showing you where to press and how to do it okay so to start with we're just going to bring out our foot or if you're with a partner or a friend you could do it on a friend's foot and I usually like just to open up by putting a little bit of moisture into the foot so that the hands and the thumbs can glide really nicely when they're working so I'm just going to basically add a little alond oil and then just massage it into the foot now in reflexology they look at the foot as a map of the whole body as I mentioned and then they break the foot down into five parts and so if you were to look at a foot they're going to draw a line five times down the foot so on a vertical as well as a horizontal so on the vertical you're Imagining the foot as a line all the way down from the big toe all the way down from the second toe the third toe the fourth toe and the fifth toe as the last segment and then after they split that up they also split it up into five parts on the horizontal level so you have one across the big toes across the toes and then another line just underneath the mound the top mound of the foot one in the center of the foot another line at the very curvature of the B of the heel and then of course the heel is the fifth one for that particular quadrant and as they split that up they start to dissect it in a way that responds to how the body is aligned with where the organs are as well so for example the top part of the foot rep represents the head so you're working with sinuses you're working with vision you're also working with like the glands in the brain and all of that is mapped into the toes and then you move down to the second part of the foot and the second part of the foot is really the upper chest area so you're looking at the heart and the lungs and then you move down to the third quadrant and the third quadrant really works with you know you've got your stomach you got your intestinal tract your colon and then as you move down further you're going to get the lower part of the colon and then you move into to the heel and you've got the rectum you've got the base of the spine and all of that is mapped out as if you're looking at the human body now if we were to bring our feet together you would see how they represent exactly what's going up here so it would say that this particular part of the foot on both feet actually represents the spine because if I see the alignment of it that is the line of the spine so if you're working with the feet and you really want to like give yourself a nice spinal massage you work all along this line here and each part of the spine you're working on the different vertebraes as well obviously if you're starting at the lower part you're working on the lower part of the spine all the way up to the crown of the head and this works in the same if you're looking at the rest of the map of the whole body so now you have a little bit of background on how it works in the foot what I like to do when I'm going to give myself a little foot treatment I like to actually take a little reflexology chart just so that I can track where the sensitive areas are on my foot so that I can see what's actually taking place in my body like what organ is weak where needs special attention and that can actually help as well so you can get these online they're very easy to find and uh once I've got that set up and I put a little oil on my feet then I'm just going to really start with the spine because I feel like everything comes from the spine our central nervous system everything reacts to the spine so I start with the spine which is at the very base right here and uh one of the movements that you can actually do is just pressing in and then moving up pressing in and moving up and the spine kind of Curves up a little bit in the same way that the curvature of the spine works in your back so it kind of Curves up a little bit and then goes down and around and so all you want to do is you just press and then push forward press and push forward press and push forward and this is just a technique of bringing pressure to The Reflex of that that particular part of the body and then you start to find oh there's a little sensitive area oh that's a little bit weak or that feels really tight and that particular tight area is an area where there may be stagnation a block or there may be an illness occurring in the body and so say I found this particular area I'm like oh yeah and I look over at my Chanel okay that's the uh colon which I've been having some colon issues so rather than moving straight past it I'll just hold my thumb in that particular area for about 5 seconds and just apply pressure as I apply pressure I'll just take some really long slow deep breaths so breathing in and then exhaling because the breath really helps you to release the tension as well you're bringing an awareness to those parts of your body while also applying pressure to that particular reflex point and and then once you've moved past that point it becomes a little bit softer you can feel it like oh that actually opened up a little bit then I just like to really open up the foot a little bit more and just get the energy moving and that's also moving the energy in your body as well so in the same ways if you're cleansing the liver cleanse the liver but then you want it to move into the other organs so it can continue to eliminate out of your body so we're just going to keep that energy moving and then we head back and we start moving in the same way down the spine and then all the way up to the roof of the head and your sinuses are all up the top here and then also the thumb this particular Middle Point is connected to your pituitary gland your pineal gland where all your hormones and everything are produced and so you can give yourself a little massage there too and that's really great balancing point a lot of the time in yoga they'll ask you to hold your big toe and if you hold your big toe while in a pose and you press it you're also helping the balancing of those hormonal patterns okay so once you've done all up and down that line you could really spend a lot of time in this particular Zone because it is connected to your whole body um then you want to move into the different sections as I mentioned there's five different sections um and so I like to just move section by section just pressing and holding and pushing forward okay so that's basically all you're going to do all the way down the foot through all five sections and then you'll notice I mentioned before as it is a map of the whole body the right side is a right side map of the right part of the body and the left foot is a map of the left side of the body after you've done a nice move through of the whole foot you've done the pressing I like to then just keep the energy moving so you've stimulated a lot of circulation you've also stimulated a lot of movement of of the energy and the blockages in the body so the foot might feel a little bit sensitive which is quite normal so what I like to do at the end is just really move all of the energy up towards the upper part of the body we've got everything aligned on the roof of the foot as well and so all I really like to do you could do the same pressing motion all through the segments as well and you're going to notice sensitive places to work on too and um it feels really nice to move between the bones because sometimes there's a little bit of congestion between those bones and you'll actually start to notice as you do press different points you're actually going to be like oh wow I feel that in my chest or I feel that in my stomach and that's actually because you're moving that part of the body and so you can do the same technique there and I just like to open them up as well so just a gentle opening and this is a great way to close as well just because it's really nurturing for the feet it's no longer proding and poking you're just creating some gentle movements and you also want to work around the ankle as well around the side of the ankle this is connecting into your lower spine and also your balance so you're just moving through here and then just flushing it all down so we've done the feet and they're really relaxed we've done both of them you can do both sides if I do this at night it's a great way to go to sleep and then I like like to take lavender oil because the pores in the feet are actually the largest pores in the body and which means they're they really open up and they really absorb quickly into the bloodstream so if you put a little bit of essential oil on the base of your feet the bloodstream is going to absorb it and it's going to bring all of that happy yummy Lavender in this case into the rest of the body so Lavender is very peaceful it's very balancing um I love the smell of it as well and so I just like to put it on the base of the feet so that everything can absorb plus you're bringing the energy the subtle energy of the lavender flow into the organs because this is all the organs as well your feet will never be the same okay and then before you go to bed pop on some socks so that you're not slipping and sliding around the house or getting oil into the carpet and um let that just really set overnight and you wake up feeling fabulous in the morning so that's your basic tutorial to do reflexology on your feet to bring balance to your whole body I hope you've liked it let us know in the comments below what did you discover how did it feel we'd love to hear from you and if you want to check out more healthy videos head over to thrivemarket.com and I'll see you there [Music]