Slowing Down

This week I been feeling a bit rushed so I wanted to write about slowing down .

Looking over my last few blogs I feel I have been kvetching a bit. One of the frustrations of doing massage and bodywork is I can only be as good in my craft as people allow me. No matter what happens on the table, no matter how good you may feel immediately after the massage, it's how you feel in the long term that counts. Which means to improve my skills as a massage therapist It behooves me to notice sub-optimal behavior patterns that may be causing or adding to the pain and figure out a way to communicate that information. So hence the blog, where I have the luxury of time to shape a narrative.

One hazard I wish to avoid is falling into the trap where I spend too much of my energy pointing out problems. While it's helpful to be aware of problems I don't want to fixate on them. So this week I am going to bring awareness to solutions rather than problems.

I want to talk about the importance of slowing down. As simple as this strategy is, it can be the last thing any of us want to do. We are all busy spending too much time trying to get to the next task that needs doing, rather than slowing down to the point where we can notice what is going on in our bodies. The more hurried we are the more our bodies fall into default patterns.

This makes sense evolutionary. If we are busy hustling and bustling we are tapping into our adrenaline. And to maintain the frenzy we need our cortisol which takes a toll on the body. Then there is coffee, sugar, and weird energy drink. This creates a fight or flight mindset. In this state, our bodies feel threatened and are myopically focused on surviving. In this state, our bodies are not worried about what the best biomechanical way to type, or move something, or do whatever we are doing. In an actual fight or flight scenario, this contemplative level of thinking is a liability. Better to safely flee danger with a bit of strain than being killed.

While those life and death struggles are rare for many of us in modern life we do have an inordinate amount of simulated flight or flight situations. Situations where we are safe yet hormonally in a state of low-level distress. When we are running on adrenaline we fall into patterns. When we are in a more meditative, relaxed states we can program what these patterns will be. By simply taking the time to process how something feels our body begins to learn a new habit that can over some time override previous habits.

The more we can slow our mind and our body down the opportunity we have to make postural and gait corrections that long term can impact our health as much as anything else we do. Taking time to notice a rounded shoulder, swayed back, a crooked wrist, or whatever else may be causing us issues. Then noticing exactly how it feels we can correct our misalignments.

All our body parts are interconnected in so many ways. Any alteration to any aspect of it can and will affect other regions. Changing the way we hold our shoulders may be felt in our hips or legs. Maybe adjusting our neck will be felt in our arms. Whatever we notice we should give attention to that only happens when we slow down. We should take in precisely how a new hopefully improved biomechanically patterns feels. That is valuable information the body needs.

Taking time to do this will alleviate many problems before they start. Massage can be a great way of deepening our knowledge about our bodies, what they like and what hurts them. Taking time to slow down and take responsibility for our movements brings the value of massage off the table and into our lives.

Anthony Bruni