Why Are Calluses So Important to a Reflexologist?

hello and welcome adam thomas from balancing touch reflexology so good to see you and thanks for joining me today well today i am actually in japan visiting friends and family and i thought i would share with you why our callus is so important so first of all what is a callus so a callus is basically a rough or thickened area of skin that has been created from you know constant irritation or you know rubbing or pressure um to the skin right so it creates like a protection barrier right it creates thicker skin right or else you start you know getting like raw skin and it really hurts right so that sort of thing so over time when there's a constant pressure in a certain area the the body goes oh cool let's send down and protect this area by thickening the skin right so that's basically what a callus is and to a reflexologist this is can be really juicy information for us because well we specialize in the feet and we know that the feet reflect the body's condition calluses are one of the main ones that i use to instantly tell mostly structural kind of issues like with postural problems and things like that they instantly show up in the feet today i want to share with you a couple of the areas that i pretty much always see in clients [Music] okay so the first one i want to go over that i see that's very common is in this area here in reflexology when you relate it to what part it's related to um it's known as the uh the nose reflex what's interesting is directly behind the nose is the top of the spine where the axis of the head is right so that where the head attaches to the spine and rotates right so that's right at the top of the cervical spine um so are there any neck issues are you having any type of you know pain discomfort back here right so i ask them that so a lot of tension headaches and stuff can come from this area things like that so i'll ask them you know structurally first uh sort of what's going on there how are they feeling in that area um and another one that i like to cover too is i'll ask them how they're sleeping how is their you know daily sleeping pattern going and why i asked that is because it's related to the nose and the nose is really interesting i did another video on the nose um so if you haven't seen that you can go check it out it goes a little bit more into depth but basically the nose helps you flip over when you're sleeping at night the nose can be an indication of sleep issues when i see it on the feet right so this is a really good one as well so i asked the client you know how are they sleeping and i'll get feedback on either one which one it could be right and so it gives me an indication of what's going on there [Music] and the next one that i see a lot is a little bit further down which is right here and that is related to the little bump on the back your neck here the seventh cervical right so again i'm going to ask for sort of neck shoulder issue issues see if there's um how they're doing in that respect and again if there's more on one side than the other right so this is a good thing to always check too right foot left foot and see if there's more of calluses here or there can indicate an imbalance in your posture right so you could be a little bit like this for example you know it's a huge exaggeration when you're walking but by doing that um posture it's going to put more pressure um in those areas on your feet right just to be able to stay uh balanced right so anyway that one isn't a big one that i see a lot too is the seven cervical so when you see some hard callus in this area here right um it's related to the seven cervical so that's going to be an indication of neck issues [Music] then we go to the next one which is on the outside here right on the pinky side and this is related to shoulders okay so i did this example just a few seconds ago and yeah when you're when your shoulders are forward when they're backwards um anything like that any type of uh shoulder posture upstream from your feet is going to show downstream in your feet because we need to stay balanced right so when you see a callus on the outside of the pinky toe there that is meaning that the posture your body is creating pressure on those parts of your feet which is related to shoulders right so how you work your shoulders how flexible non-flexible they are um is going to show up in your feet right [Music] and the last one that i want to share with you is one that i find really common and that is all around the base of the heel here right so over here you can see that and that is hardening and rough skin all the way around your heels and that is related to your back right when you put the feet together it creates a nice little bum so that's an easy way to remember it um and so that's right down at the bottom your lower back there and uh if your posture is kind of in a way that you're that you have back pain and and that sort of thing like you can get up and walk around and pretend that you have really bad lower back pain and you'll notice that your um posture will shift to your heels right and so if you do have a back issue that's how you're always walking and so it's creating that friction in uh and creating more thick skin basically in your heels so that's related to back pain problems so again you can ask your client or ask yourself how you know feel your heels and uh see how your back is doing right and so those are four of the really common ones that i see of course calluses can show up everywhere in your feet um you know tops of your toes as well and things like that and so what i really like to do is of course engage and ask the client uh how that area is doing but what you want to do is relate it to our beautiful reflexology charts that we have and just ask you know how these areas are doing right so it's really an investigation uh type thing and by working on the feet and bringing awareness um on a physical level of actually physically working on the feet um that is going to help benefit like the four that we looked at right so working on the nose reflex is going to help with sleep issues and it's also going to help with neck tension areas right upper neck tension area so that's really cool as well working on the heels is going to help with lower back issues as well so um these are kind of uh i just wanted to make this video to share with you just how important calluses can be right instead of just always thinking them as problems and of course there are issues that you know but it gives us uh as reflexologists really good information to be able to work with and share with our clients and if we know some tools on how that they can you know better help their posture and stuff that's an added bonus as well but just being able to work on their feet and then also having the clients know and be aware that these areas are being affected by their posture and stuff and then working on their feet working on their own feet is going to help let me know if there's any calluses that you have or that you've seen that you have a question about because it's a big topic and there's a lot of information that can be found from calluses right so anyway have a great day um hope this was useful and i will see you in the next video thanks for watching bye bye [Music] thanks so much for watching today let me know what you thought of this video by leaving a comment below any type of feedback can be useful and help others in reflexology if you like this video give it a thumbs up and feel free to share it with anybody that you think might be interested in if you're interested in reflexology this might be a channel to subscribe to if you haven't already hit or better yet step on that bell icon and then you'll be notified when the next video is coming out if you're looking for a reflexology chart head on over to balancingtouch.ca we have created a bunch of visually exciting easy to understand reflexology charts for you and if you have some more time check out some other videos until next time this is adam thomas from balancingtouch.ca see you later