Mapping the Endocrine System - Reflexology

alrighty everybody so let's map some endocrine system reflexes we start first and foremost by drawing our guidelines and I know some of you especially my live students are like oh my goodness here we go with the guidelines again um but they are super important they are super important because they allow you to know where you are in the extremity and also when you practice the fundamentals you get really good at everything else so shoulderline guideline diaphragm guideline waistline guideline at the proximal head of the fifth metatarsal and pelvic line guideline we're also going to do the plantar tendon guideline here which is the plantar fascia that runs normally in line with the second toe depending on the foot that you're working on and we'll start at the top with the pituitary pineal reflex and so we're going to go right in the center of the big toes and that's for both pituitary and pineal although they are technically two separate endocrine glands they are in the same location then we have the thyroid parathyroid which is on the medial surface of the neck reflex at the big toe then we have the thymus reflex although again mostly in children right in the center you'll often see it in maps as like the the small dot in the center of the broader heart reflex um kind of just to give you an idea since the heart is also a secondary hormone producer you know something like that now here's where it gets interesting let's do pink let's do kidneys first and adrenals in order to find the adrenals it's really really easy to find the adrenals once you find the kidneys so we're going to go half above half below the waistline guideline in line with the third toe and then the adrenals are basically just going to be on top of that if you wanted to be super specific and Technical about it it's going to be in between the first and second toe halfway between the um halfway between diaphragm and waistline guidelines so the points are a little bit different there but basically what you're looking for with the adrenal glands is there's going to be this thicker flexor tendon of the big toe and then there's going to be the plantar fascia and you're going in between the plantar fascia and the big flexor tendon that's a muscle by the way and then you'll find that little Notch and that Notch is where you want to be which again is going to be different based on kind of the shape of the foot that you're working on and then pancreas we use yellow for pancreas is going to be at the base of horizontal zone three again another reason why the zones are so important and then a little bit a little bit on um the right side mostly on the left because pancreas is left side centered but also something real quick that I wanted to throw out here notice how we talk about the adrenal glands as sex salts and sugars right the three s's but the pancreas is right by the adrenal gland reflexes because of their sympathy I find that super interesting that the glands kind of group together according to their function but anyway then for the rest of these bad uh endocrine gland reflexes we need to switch to the dorsal view because the rest are going to be reproductive okay so get out your dorsal medial and lateral and let's flip to the dorsal aspect first let's map the entire reproductive system shall we we'll go to the medial side first we have that Crescent shaped uterus prostate reflex on the inside of the medial malleolus then we have the dorsal fallopian tube vas deferens reflex also muscularly all of that pelvic deep soas muscular space and then we come around to the lateral angle and the lateral ankle has the pituitary or the pituitary goodness the ovary testes reflex halfway between the edge of the Achilles tendon insertion and the crest of the lateral malleolus which is going to be your hip reflex so halfway between those two points you have that [Music] um that ovary testes reflex and it between the uterus uh prostate and the ovary testes the dorsal ankle forms a bridge and that's exactly what the Fallopian tubes do they form a bridge between the ovaries and the uterus very much what the vas deferens do except from an external standpoint since in the male gender the ovaries descend into testicles and the vas deferens become the fallopian tube or the flip that the Fallopian tubes become the vas deferens but they connect the testes to uh the excretory aspect of the male reproductive prostate so fun fun little Anatomy flipping going on there and then if we wanted to just like go to the top picture and look at that we could Bridge and then can't really see the lateral aspect too well but we can do medial uterus prostate and then just imagine lateral ovary testes so that's reproductive aspects again if we wanted to think of the secondary reflexes there also like from a 3D perspective also really important you know pancreas on the left foot going a little bit more on to the right bam kidneys dorsal really cool in a traditional Chinese medicine there's one of the gates the energetic Gates is right on the adrenal reflexes you can look that up in various literature if you ever have some time free on a Sunday also people who have toenail fungus right in the center of the big toenails is that pituitary pineal also one of the reasons why I associate that in my book on foot reading with a depression State it's because Sogo the nails so go the mind but specifically the chemical aspect of the Mind thyroid parathyroid bam bam I can't really see it too well on this angle but just getting good at like looking at the the glands from a different point of view that'll really help you to understand from various angles like the reflexes aren't just on the plantar surface they're through and through and it'll get you to kind of weave in and out of that that mental process as well okay so let's do hands comes okay so let's do our mapping so right underneath the big joint or right above the big joint of the thumb we have our shoulder line guideline separating horizontal Zone one from horizontal zone two biome proximal head of the fifth metacarpal creates our waistline guideline and then in between the proximal and distal row of carpals creates our pelvic line so that is our basic map and now we get to superimpose the reflexes onto that so we'll start with pituitary pineal right in the center of the thumb then we have thyroid parathyroid on the what would be the lateral aspect of the thumb because we're in anatomical position Western anatomical position is thumbs out which creates the thumbs on the lateral surface and anatomical position but if we were to flip the hands to mirror the feet with the thumbs being the big toes we would still be on the medial surface so a little bit of confusion there so I'm using lateral language because that is the anatomically correct way to talk about that but just make sure that you understand the difference between medial and Lateral with the hands because it's all about positioning then we have the thymus then we have 222 the ability to draw the kidneys biome buy them right in the smack dab in the middle of that then or eminence and then we have the adrenals medially or laterally in this case on top of that again the difference between medial and lateral the adrenals are more midline towards the midline medial but in the hands because we're flipped onto anatomical position that means that they're lateral in this case but all about positioning okay then we'll throw in uh also something to just keep in mind this is the uh left hand of the client this is the right hand of the client so pancreas is going to be on the left hand [Music] and then slightly on the right okay then we have the reproductive space so let's move to do [Music] the dorsal aspect dorsal aspect dorsal aspect okay and uh the lateral side is going to be our ovaries testes the medial side is going to be our uterus prostate and then the dorsal aspect fallopian tube vest deferens so just real quick kind of how we do that you can always superimpose the other ones as you see fit based on your drawing and you're drawing skills for the face shoulder length guideline at the eyebrows diaphragm guideline underneath the eyes at the zygomatic Arch extending the lip line for the waistline and then the crest of the chin extending that along unfortunately not not as prevalent on a 2D image but along the base of the the maxilla the Jawbone so pituitary pineal right smack dab in the center of the forehead then we have thyroid parathyroid and after a thyroid parathyroid then we have our thymus which is going to be at the bridge of the nose and then we have kidney time kidney time is going to be on either side of the lips and then the adrenal glands are going to be halfway in between the sides of the nose and the sides of the mouth right over the root of the canine tooth then with the face we don't really need to go through the hassle of going through media lateral but it does get pretty cramped pretty quick so we have uterus prostate uh and then ovaries testes and then Fallopian tubes vas deferens if you wanted to be like super specific for men since they descend you could do it that way but I just tend to view the entire chin area as reproductive so what you'll notice is if clients come in and they really have a lot of clustering acne is the big thing that I see here or like for men if they have a patch of their beard that's grayish or has gone gray like I knew one client who had a patch of gray right over this area had a lot of prostate issues because the area was weak that bleaching of the tissue and in this case the hair transferred into the meaning of weakness so interesting stuff to to work with the the face and the endocrine reflexes um also oh we forgot pancreas pancreas is going to be on the left side of the face right over the lip also really important area to note uh from an acne perspective so uh one of the other things that you might want to be aware of is if somebody has upper lip issues if they get sores on their upper lip if they have anything upper lip wise it's going to be that pancreas adrenal space it's also going to be stomach liver versus if we have more lower lip issues that's going to be lower digestive reproductive so just fun like tinkering stuff that you would want to be aware of with the face that area has a lot of super concentrated stuff which is why it's valued so highly in terms of an assessment tool in so many different systems because it really does show you what the client has to literally face moving on to the ears ears we have horizontal Zone one crest of the helix horizontal zone two base of the Triangular fossa horizontal zone three right at that cleft that Ridge in between the symbicanka and Kevin kanka the Upper Ridge in lower Ridge and then the lobe create zone five yay that was fun okay so pituitary pineal bam right at the crest of the ear then we have thyroid parathyroid bam right above uh the shoulder line guideline I really view these the more the more I work with the ears the more I find that it's that flap in general it's above it's below it's all of it any inflammation here any tip of the ear like extra ridges or chunks of cartilage that are not settled right like all of that is very sinus headspace okay moving on to thymus which is going to be right at that Ridge in the Triangular fossa space then let's do kidneys kidneys are going to be right here in this little Nook and then adrenals technically adrenals are going to be like all the way in here I find it's a little bit different there's a little notch in here um versus like what I'll tell my students is the solar plexus is going to be in the center of that that Ridge um but then the adrenal is going to be inward from it so it's it's a little bit different from other mapping systems or maybe the kidney is bigger you know it's just that that Ridge is very much like how the low back cradles the kidneys and then the adrenal gland is in the upper half of that Notch that cave okay very similar to the face oh we have pancreas I keep forgetting your pancreas um in that same cave we're going to draw a pancreas and then over just a little bit to the right hmm then we have reproductive and reproductive is similar to the face because we have all of it kind of clustered into one area so uterus ovaries prostate testes and then Fallopian tubes vas deferens okay and that is how we do it for the ears so that is how we map the endocrine reflexes on the various extremities looking forward to sharing a lot more information in this lesson with you it's going to be super fun lots of lots of really cool stuff in the audio lecture with areas of emphasis so enjoy