Mapping the Cardiovascular System - Reflexology

[Music] alrighty everybody so here we are with the cardiovascular system reflexes and how to map these uh bad girls and boys on the feet first and foremost uh we need to draw our guidelines we'll also be going through hands face and ears as well so we have our shoulder line guideline just where the toes meet the ball of the foot then we have our diaphragm guideline just below the ball of the foot just as the distal Arch starts to pick up then we have our proximal head of the fifth metatarsal indicating that direct knee reflex which creates our waistline and then we have the start of the heel or the base of the cuboid Notch which creates our pelvic line so those are our guidelines and as far as the cardiovascular system is concerned you might think that we only need to know horizontal zone two because horizontal Zone 2 is the chest space which is the heart reflex however we are going to map the entire cardiovascular system which although still very simple because we're basically just going to follow major blood flow it's we need to know all of the various vesseling so if we wanted to kind of turn our attention to the bottom of the page while I draw you a nice little human we have the head and then we have the neck and bear with me we have the shoulders and a thumb and a hand and we have the shoulders and a thumb and a hand it's cold outside they're wearing mittens okay so nice little stick person with the arms way too big for the rest of the body totally okay so we have the heart and the Heart itself is more on the left side but from the heart we have various forms of circulation so we have the circulation that goes up into the brain then we have the circulation that stays locally into the lungs and then we have the circulation that goes down into the various extremities so that's how we're basically going to map each of these extremities is we're going to start with the heart reflex so the heart reflex being mostly on that left side we can see that but then we also have the circulation that would go throughout the lungs then we would have the circulation that would go up into the headspace and then we would have the circulation that would actually follow down the core of the body and Branch out into the lower body okay so this is our major outline of kind of the various blood flow patterns of the reflexes now here's where we get into our assessment kind of specifics is we're not just focused on kind of this as being a cardiovascular map we're talking about fluid and blood so what we're looking for is in the various extremities where is the fluid going and where is the blood going fluid will be more important in the next lesson for the lymphatic system but it's also relevant here we're looking for more specifically vesseling so especially like around the low back reflexes do you see a lot of superficial vesseling indicating that blood flow is being restricted here in the chest area do you find that all of that um kind of ball of the foot tissue is actually red puffy and fluid filled are you seeing veins popping up anywhere and then also if we wanted to like extend that I know it seems kind of redundant but extending that with that vascularity that would go down the arms kind of throughout that whole zone two space as an extension of that you know all of that is super relative event so really paying attention to where the blood is flowing in the extremity and that will give you an idea of how the cardiovascular system is operating or not operating accordingly okay so that is the feet let's move on to the hands okay so the hands remember this is anatomical position right so the Palms are flipped open but we're actually going to view the thumb as the midline and that index finger is vertical zone five laterally the lateral body that is just flipped because of anatomical position so a little confusing but just as an FYI so we want our shoulder line guideline [Music] and again we've just got to make a little bit of a dip there because the hands are shaped a little bit differently horizontal zone two below that proximal joint of the thumb and then we have our proximal head of the fifth meta carpal as our waistline and then the second row of carpals which we kind of just have to draw imaginarily as our pelvic line okay so those are our guidelines and then that means that with the thumbs being midline and horizontal zone two with the right hand here and the left hand here do we see how I did that so right hand this is the client's right hand and then this is the client's left hand okay so you might be looking at it like this from a treatment standpoint so they're on the table and their head is here their body is here their feet are down here yeah hopefully that doesn't make it more confusing but this is their right hand this is their left hand so that means that our heart reflex is going to be predominantly on this side on that proximal joint so when we talk about bunions of the feet being a sign of cardiovascular distress especially if they're on that left side and you see it as red puffy hot you know all the blood markers we would then do the same thing for the hands so if on the left hand that proximal thumb joint has started to swell started to get painful you know all that stuff that's a sign that the client is having some of that those cardiovascular reflexes are starting to flare and start to get a little bit gnarly which is not okay so we want to go up into the headspace so each finger representing an extension of that head space circulation then we want to go throughout the chest space we could even draw little lungs in there if we wanted which is super wonky but still appropriate just to give you a visual and then we have our Central circulation which goes down the spine and then if we really wanted to be specific going into vertical zone five horizontal zone five at the very very base okay and that is the circulation of the hand so again horizontal zone two is our Mainstay for the lung circulation as well as for the heart then we follow the major patterns of blood and that's not to say that there's not blood happening in the center of the reflexes for the upper and lower digestive system as well as around the wrist that's definitely a very important area but when we think of major arteries that's where they travel they go up into the head around the lungs and then down into the lower body through the center line so that's kind of how we would map the cardiovascular system reflexes moving on to the face starting with our guidelines we have our shoulder line guideline aka the eyebrows AKA give them a unibrow then we have our zygomatic bone as our diaphragm guideline then we have the extension of our lip line as the waistline and then we have the jawline as our pelvic line okay which means that horizontal Zone 2 more on the left side here we have the heart which I know is like blowing your minds right now so what I tell my students all the time we're about to do some crazy stuff to this girl's eyes I'm so so sorry um but when we see a lot of the petechia a lot of The Superficial veins that are uh coming into the eyes of a person that indicates that the cardiovascular system and specifically the respiratory cardiovasculars are starting to get very very red and angry from an emotional standpoint that's really significant but also from a cardiovascular standpoint when we're seeing a lot of really heavy redness happening around the eyes that's core chest space including heart so something to be aware of so we have all of our lungs which means also that any fluid retention dark circles around the eyes anything like that very much lymphatic but also cardiovascular then we have our kind of arm extension then up into the head down the center line into the lower body that is pretty much our circulatory system for the face so we really want to be paying attention to how the eyes are behaving then we want to look at that center line for the major cardiovascular and then really pay attention to the jaw and then up into the head as well when we see like little veins starting to pop in the head that indicates vascular pressure which is a pretty easy sign like we all know when people get angry they get pressured their face gets red but specifically if we're seeing a lot of vasculature happening in the headspace a lot of Trapped fluid a lot of Trapped blood that's an indication that there's a lot of horizontals on one pressure and with the face as being a horizontal Zone one structure a kind of big picture of the body it's more apt to show us those horizontal Zone one reflexes anyway moving on to the ears our last extremity so we have at the top of the Triangular fossa our horizontal Zone one our shoulder line then we have at the bottom of that triangular fossa that dip just before the Simba konka that little cave that first ditch we have our diaphragm guideline then we have the kind of flap of skin right in between that divides the Simba kanka from The cavemkonka which indicates our waistline guideline and then we have the base of the auditory opening that came from konka as our pelvic line and those are the various guidelines of the ear and the cardiovascular system so this triangular fossa this lovely lovely lovely ditch this kind of crevice in the center this is my respiratory guide it's also very heart centered of the chest space so when we think of heart we want to think of left side dominant but definitely still present in this area and it is definitely on the Helix as well it's more so underneath uh in that flap that literal indent when we think of reflexology in general it's very important to think as literally as possible so when we think of like the caves of the ear as being the caverns of the body it's very appropriate to think hey this looks like the lungs would fit in there this looks like the stomach and liver would fit in there this looks like the pelvic Basin where all of the digestive and reproductive and urinary organs would sit that's how we map it right so we're trying to see the body through the lens of the extremity so here we then have our head circulation our chest lung our arm circulation and then down the core into the lower body and that is our cardiovascular map of the ears again we're really paying attention to that triangular fossa that ditch in horizontal zone two and very much even on this picture you can see if you really zoom in there's that petechia those little vessels let me highlight some of those real quick you can see what I what I'll tell my students is you always want to look for lightning in the ears because that particular looks like just fingers of lightning I know growing up in Tampa Florida USA we are the lightning capital of the US so it's you know I I know that image a lot of just that electric webbing that tends to happen and so I relate that to very much how the vessels behave in an ear that is undergoing that horizontal Zone to respiratory cardiovascular distress so something interesting but that is how we would map the cardiovascular system on the ears pretty easy great job everybody