Part 1: Reflexology for Improving Circulation in Cold Weather

hello and welcome Adam Thomas from balancing touch reflexology so good to see you and thanks for joining me today today I want to share with you reflexology one of its great benefits which is improving circulation so I want to show you tips and tricks today on how to improve circulation specifically in cold [Music] weather so when the cold weather comes we tend to stiffen up we get cold hands and feet and we tend to not move as much things like we would normally maybe just park the car maybe further away and then walk to our destination where if it's cold and wintry out we want to get as close to the entrance as possible for example right or we just don't simply go outside and go for that walk so it seems like we need to put more effort into staying active which when we're active helps with the circulation in the body but as I said before reflexology one of its great benefits is improving circulation so reflexology is really great in that it helps stimulate and promote circulation blood flow in the body lymphatic movement when we're staying active and those circulation keeps happening we tend to not even get sick right we have that saying where you know don't catch a cold a cold right when when we're moving into winter that's outside cold so there's a saying of don't catch the cold if we keep warm if we keep working on circulation if we keep uh our lymphatic system circulating with tools like reflexology doing on oursel going to see a reflexologist and so reflexology becomes more of a prevention and we're able to not catch a cold so there have been studies done in reflexology and one of its main benefits is like I've been saying improving circulation so there's actual data out there now that shows working on the feet with specific points helps with circulation doing an entire reflexology session is probably the best way to get the full benefit of that um increased promotion of circulation but there are a couple points that I'm going to just briefly touch on here that uh you want to pay specific attention to and that being one and organs and reflexes that are dealing directly with circulation so we have the heart right it pumps um blood uh throughout the body so another one is the adrenal glands and working on the adrenal glands can help with the stress response when we're not stressed out and our stress response comes down then the parasympathetic nervous system can be activated and then that's our rest and digest that is helping with circulating uh negative stress in your body lymphatic system is really important to work and exercise physical movement is one of the only ways that the lymphatic system actually circulates because the lymphatic system works doesn't have a pump like the circulatory system right the pump of the heart it works with muscle contractions if it's not getting stimulated then the circulation doesn't move and inside these vessels are little um valves like this that push and then close and push and close and push and close so they go they move in One Direction and if you're not moving your body or breathing nice and deep to create that um lymphatic movement then lymphatic system is your defense system and so you're going to end up also catching a cold so keeping movement and uh muscle contractions breathing deeply all these things can help with uh lymphatic system so I'm going to show you now the heart reflex for example and I have the left foot here the heart is found beneath the second and third toes here on the ball of the foot right in this area here and the heart pumps it does so much for us so we want to just work it we can use both thumbs if we want to work it there's no real direction for it I like to go in keep it in sort of a clockwise motion things in our body move in a clockwise uh motion we have you know our stomach and it works in a clockwise motion our large intestine moves up across down and around in a clockwise motion motion so I think it's a benefit to work the heart in a clockwise motion here working the entire foot in a flexology session is going to help create uh stimulation and work the whole foot there so we have the heart and then we have working all the foot in a reflexology session is going to be the greatest benefit there uh the lungs they're found on both feet I just have the left foot here but it's uh mirrored on the right foot as well there's a natural occurring little line that goes between a little Valley that goes between this big toe bump here where a bunion would be if you know what that is um but it's basically above the diaphragm line here which is right there and I just work the entire area I overwork it so technically speaking it's in this area um not so much on the outside but I just work the whole thing because when you deep breathe your shoulders and everything open up and then close down and open up and close down right so I work this entire area and again air comes in and it moves around it's not in a a specific Direction but you can use thumbs here you can use a DOT to DOT type technique anything to really work that so what we end up happening here is we end up working this whole area and the Heart sits within the lungs on the anatomy there you can see it up there in that chart heart is right there lungs over there lungs over there lymphatic points we have lymphatic that are in our neck so I like to work that with a pinching action and I go down deep enough so that you're not just pinching skin that cuz that hurts so I'll show you on my fingers cuz it's found on the hands in the same spot you want to go a little bit deeper than right here okay so that little flap of skin you don't want to pinch that you want to go deeper and I move my finger down into where I can feel the bones join so I'm on this side of where the bones join and I just give a nice little one two three and the pressure is on my finger as well as my thumb and a little tip here is if you add the finger on Top This finger here middle finger on top of your index finger the working finger you can get a bit more stimulation it's easier on your wrists right if you're just just going like this um you can't get as much com comfortable pressure so I really like to add in and if you can add in all the fingers and just that way you can use less effort and create a a bigger impact a bigger deeper pressure if you need to um but just be careful when you do this um you're going to have a lot more power but that's a little tip there on technique how to use that so you go here here here and here so on the toes we have here move in between there there and there and that's lymphatic in the head and neck we have axillary lymphatic which is over here there's a little point in here that we can go one two three and then we have inguino lymph which is the lymph that is found in the groin area and I use fingers like this and I move up and stimulate the whole where the ankle bends right around there you want to stimulate everything there and it's basically found above where the ankle bone is and then on the inside ankle bone all across the top of the foot okay so all up here and you just stimulate that as well much as you can you can use your fingertips like this to really work that well so that is some really main points to working the feet but I I really think working the entire foot getting a full session of stimulation and getting all the points on the feet worked really well is going to bring nice warmth and circulation flow to the feet which then translates into the body so that's what I usually focus on when I'm working with the feet um you can also incorporate some nice warm oil and you know do some nice massage techniques at the end of your session that one really works as well uh you can also use a bit more of deeper pressure to bring more circulation to the surface if you need to if it's if that's your style of reflexology you can use uh tools right if you're familiar with using tools to get a little bit deeper to create more heat in the body um but if you're not into that that's totally fine uh it is a bit of I don't personally use tools on my clients too much I use them on myself because you can feel what you're doing to yourself it's harder if you're I feel my thumbs are more sensitive and I can feel exactly how deep I'm going on a client sometimes when I'm using a tool I can't really gauge that because I don't use a tool all the time on my clients if you're a reflexologist that use uses tools then yeah I would highly recomend recommend using that uh to create more circulation