Mapping the Digestive System - Reflexology

alrighty everybody let's talk about the Digestive reflexes yay digestive reflexes let's map them on the feet first and we always need to start withdrawing our guidelines the only guidelines that are really important for us are going to be the diaphragm the waistline and the pelvic but let's go ahead and draw the shoulder line guideline just to be nice and all-inclusive so we have shoulder line diaphragm proximal head of the fifth metatarsals create our waistline and then our pelvic line okay so those are our four guidelines we now have a pretty good idea of where our digestive reflexes are going to fall let's start with the upper digestive reflexes we're going to use some different colors for each of those so we have liver which I should probably draw the gallbladder in first so we have gallbladder just this little pocket liver which is the big squiggle of purple we've left this little hole out here for pancreas which traverses most of zone three on the left foot and then a little bit on the right then we have the Boop spleen which is kind of the equivalent to the gallbladder on the left foot and then we have the stomach and some of you are thinking I know I'm reading your minds through the camera Sam why aren't you drawing some of the stomach on the right and some of the liver on the left also just so that you know we're talking about the client's right foot and the client's left foot there and it's because I've personally found that all of the liver stuff happens on the right all of the stomach stuff happens on the left the only exception to this is the pancreas I find when this spot is super inflamed and then the whole base of zone three on the left is in flamed there's definitely pancreas stuff happening there that's that's really what I tend to focus on is Right liver gallbladder left stomach spleen although I do recognize that in the body they actually kind of go yin yang they kind of complement each other that way I don't necessarily practice that way in terms of what I've noticed okay so with that being said we're going to avoid the kidney reflexes because they kind of go over on top of all this and get in our way so let's do the colon reflexes next okay so we have the ascending half of transverse on the right we have the other half of transverse the descending and what would be the sigmoid rectum flexor which a lot of people draw on zone five I haven't found that to be super accurate but you know each map is a little bit different then we can just do a a therapeutic squiggle for the small intestine because it's kind of all over the place and that's basically our digestive reflexes one thing that I would also like to point out is going to be the esophageal reflex which we'll draw in we've used up almost every color we'll reuse green so from the stomach I find that it does traverse across diagonally that zone more so on the left side than the right that's the only other aspect that I really wanted to to drive home so those are our digestive reflexes but now I'd like to introduce a concept of through and through to you all because I do find it super important so we're going to keep our our visual of the standard map here but then we're also going to look at what the what the zones and digestive reflexes look like from these various angles so shoulder line diaphragm line proximal head although it's a little bit difficult to see on this angle behind the malleoli shoulder line diaphragm perfect same thing same thing come across go behind a little bit weird because the ankle is dorsiflexed but that's okay we won't hold that against them okay now let's draw the digestive reflexes on the dorsal aspect because that's always super fun and important we'll start with our stomach and spleen because we can see um let's do spleen or gallbladder rather zone three that's really the only way we can see it on this foot on that dorsal aspect but then we can see spleen multiple areas spleen here and spleen here remember it's on the lateral side of zone three on the left side now let's do liver stomach so we have a large amount of liver on the dorsal aspect when a lot of people ask me what the anemia bump is the anemia bump is right here it's at the base of the liver often indicating pancreas stuff as well this is all liver territory but then if you really wanted to get specific this is a little bit of spine and then some pancreas action as well right here and across here pancreas pancreas okay and then we have the stomach stomach which is our Pinky pink pink pink pink pink pink pink pink pink yay stomach so happy okay now let's do our large intestine large intestine we have the ascending colon transverse I know it's freaking you out oh my God the dorsal aspect I wasn't prepared for this Sam then we have the other half of transverse in the descending then there's that snapshot of the transverse then the other snapshot of the transverse and the descending and then it would even kind of Branch off into the heel the plantar surface of the heel than if you really wanted to get specific this would also continue the lumbar spine then we have the squiggle of small intestine which is all through here all through here because that dorsal ankle represents that deep pelvic core same thing with the small intestine as well I think the only other aspect that we drew on to it was the esophagus reflex which we can't really see because it's on the plantar surface of the foot but if you really wanted to get specific it would be here cool and those are our foot reflexes for the digestive system and moving on to the hands let's look at the Palmer surface and draw our guidelines so we're going to start with the shoulder line guideline then we'll move to the diaphragm guideline just below the bunion area of the thumb right at that a carpophalangeal joint then we have the proximal head of the fifth metacarpal for the waistline and then the pelvic line okay those last two are going to be really important for the large intestine reflex coming up so now let's get to our spleen and gallbladder so just as a refresher this is the client's right hand the client's left hand anatomical position gets a little bit tricky so because this is the right hand the gallbladder goes on the right but the fifth vertical Zone and fourth vertical Zone in between is where the gallbladder is so we are going to draw immediately instead of laterally because that's where it occurs just a little bit of switching it up due to the position of the hand same thing with the spleen so medially between the fourth and fifth digit in horizontal zone three that's spleen territory moving on to stomach on the left side making room for our pancreas not overcrowd the spleen at all then we have the liver on the right side making room for the pancreas which has a more medial uh insertion normally but that means it's a lateral on the hands so leave some lateral space and now we draw pancreas pancreas pancreas yay fabulous okay now comes the fun part we get to work with the large intestine so large intestine ascends on the right side and it ascends normally laterally on the feet but because we are in anatomical position on the hands in line with the fifth vertical Zone still but we're going to start medially with the ascending colon and half of transverse just a little bit harder to draw on the hands because the zones are so small just due to the way that the hands are structured but then we have to go all the way across starting with the thumb side on the left and then down for the descending on the left in line with vertical zone four and five and if we wanted to draw the sigmoid back to medial we could okay it's a little bit different then we have the small intestine coloring in the small intestine careful not to mix your yellows and blues because then you get green and green should not be present in the intestine area that's going to be for our reflexology soundtrack anyway so those are our core digestive reflexes then we'll just add the esophageal reflexes speaking of green take that stomach area and draw that line into horizontal Zone one and that is the Palmer surface of the hands now let's move to the dorsal surface of the hands go ahead and draw all of our guidelines on the dorsal aspect dorsal shoulder line dorsal diaphragm dorsal diaphragm proximal head of fifth metacarpal and line between the carpals perfect now let's do to do r [Music] again so let's look at left and right here so we have right hand left hand so that means gallbladder is going to go here and spleen is going to go here okay that's going to be our our two lovely assistance and then we have liver with a little bit of pancreas and then a lot of pancreas and then all the stomach and I just shade it all over the pore spleen then we have our ascending colon in line with the pinky finger transverse and then descending colon and other half of transverse as well as sigmoid if you wanted to to go there perfect and then small intestine and small intestine goes something like this squiggle squiggle squiggle squiggle squiggle squiggle and that is that as well as we have our that's purple that's green on the left side esophageal reflexes oh that's blue goodness oh no I messed up our drawing everybody where's our where's our green our green is here there we go we saw that okay so that would be our esophagus reflexes and that's the dorsal aspect of the hands because the hands are through and through and so are all the other extremities we need to be aware of that now let's move on to the face shoulder line guideline zygomatic Ridge is going to be our diaphragm guideline extending the lip line is going to be our waistline guideline and then that cleft of the chin extended unfortunately not as good on a 2D image much easier to do it 3D okay let's start with our spleen on the left the client's left and the gallbladder on the right then we'll do our um our pancreas just for giggles just a little bit on the right and then it basically traverses all across the lip line there's that and then we have our let's do stomach first pink for stomach and that also puts all of the upper teeth in the upper digestive space which I think is really important to note then we have our purple for liver so specifically right side of upper teeth is going to be liver and gallbladder front row of teeth is also very pancreas influenced and then that left side of upper teeth going to be largely stomach now we have our ascending colon half of transverse descending colon and sigmoid if we really wanted to to do that that means that the lower lip and the lower teeth represent the lower digestive reflexes isn't that fun yay fun okay then we could map it specifically ascending colon on the right side transverse and then lower uh descending colon sigmoid on the left then all the small intestine Glory which you can barely see but that's okay and then the esophageal reflex we really want to highlight as being from stomach to Zone one and this is really where I find the digestive reflexes to be super interesting because that Port of that left nostril really represents the esophagus versus that Port of the right nostril would really represent that gallbladder port yeah so I think that that's a fun distinction to make now that we're done with face let's go to the ears and for the ears I know that a lot of you in the who have a traditional Chinese medicine background door have studied a regular therapy uh do not have this understanding of the ears but I've tested this multiple times and it is fascinating to me how every single time I keep coming back to the Western map of exactly how we map the feet the hands the face does work for the ears in this way even though it is totally opposite of auricular work and that really gives us a really neat conversation to have in terms of you know what is influencing other stuff from the digestive standpoint my lower digestive standpoint is in the symbicon or the cavemkonka versus the Simba conquer the upper cave is going to be TCM oriented lower digestive my upper digestive is going to be in Simba conka versus the upper digestive system is going to be the caveman conquer for TCM so it's fascinating to see how the Opposites influence each other but that gives us an idea of just different schools of thought and practice okay so throwing up our guidelines real quick guidelines are going to be the top of the helix just above the Triangular fossa then just below the Triangular fossa at the ridge of the symbicanka is going to be our diaphragm then our waistline guideline is going to be right in between this Ridge the root of the Helix um all the way across between the symbicanka Kevin kanka and then at the base of that antitragesic notch or the intertraichic notch rather between the tragus and the angiotragus you want to draw a line just to separate the lobe and that gives us our lower body so we now have the question of where does everything go so our gallbladder is going to be right in here our spleen is going to be right in here in that pocket in that cave okay then we have r ver which is going to be dude leaving a little bit of room for pancreas fabulous then we have our stomach leaving a lot of room for pancreas pancreas pancreas alrighty after the pancreas then we can start to work on our large intestine large intestine is interesting I find that the outside edge of the ear although it we could map it here I find that it really likes to stick to that cave because it kind of curves just like the the intestines curve so I find that the ascending colon on the right ear tends to stick into that cavem conka that larger cave and then it wraps around the other side and goes down that same cave and if we wanted to do sigmoid rectum just like that see how it kind of SES around just like the colon okay then we have all of these small intestine reflexes as well as reproductive as well as urinary just everything in this cavem Concha space just all of that bowel of the ear is the bowel of the body another doctrine of signatures kind of in favor of this method of mapping versus all of this stuff through here would be muscular spine hip territory then we have just the esophagus that we wanted to redo as well esophagus would be the stomach reflex to Zone one so traversing the Helix right up there fabulous and that is how we finish up our mapping with the ears I hope that you have enjoyed uh this digestive mapping section and we'll get on to the other aspects of this course