Massage Therapy Blog | Massage Therapy, Massage Therapy Schools, Massage Techniques

Take a deep breath.  Relaxed, open body.  Peaceful, calm mind.  Less tension, more ease.  Energized yet focused.  This is what clients of massage therapy leave with after they get off your table.  This is why we love the work that we do.  Then why should we, the massage therapists, feel less like these descriptions after a long day of giving massage?

How do we provide this for ourselves?  How can we get some of this everyday?  It is important for us to practice proper body mechanics and make sure we receive massage as well, but one answer has been around for over two thousand years.  Yoga!

There are at least as many different types of yoga as there are massage modalities.  And, like with massage modalities, different styles of yoga have similar benefits which directly improve your ability to provide high quality massage therapy for the length of your career.  Self care is of utmost importance if you want to help your clients- both by maintaining your ability to give massage and also in your aptitude to be an example of health in your client’s lives.  Yoga and Body Mechanics

Yoga: Inversion Pose from wellandgoodnyc.com

Yoga focuses on developing strength and flexibility by moving mindfully through a series of poses, called asanas, which serve to not only keep our body resilient but also to develop a deeper awareness of our movements.  This translates into your massage therapy practice as an increased stamina of maintaining good posture and practicing optimal body mechanics.

 
Yoga and Joint Health

An occpuational concern for some massage therapists is repetitive stress injuries from overuse of thumbs, hands, wrists, elbows and shoulders.  How can we provide relief of pain for others when we ourselves are afflicted?  Yoga works to counteract the stresses by building balanced strength in the muscles which support these joints and maintaining flexibility of tendons and joint structures.  Yoga may also work to break up adhesion within our tissues and improve joint lubrication.  Yoga moves our blood, giving renewed oxygen and nutrients to these areas, and also warms our fascia which can free the body to develop more functional movement patterns.  In a way, yoga may be like giving yourself a massage. 

 
Yoga and Presence

All forms of yoga emphasize breath and a meditative quality.  It focuses and calms the mind through slowing our breath, and slowing our thoughts.  This allows us the mental and energetic space to be present during the massage.  Being present helps you deliver quality massage sessions, whereas scattered and poor quality massage sessions can result when our minds are elsewhere; when our energy is scattered.  Not only does the mindfulness from yoga help you to be a more effective massage therapist, it also gives you practice in allowing the stresses of your practice to naturally fall away as you leave your office for the day.  This kind of presence in turn gives you the space that you need to fully recharge.

Yoga: Om illustration, by Chris Macivor, from the book The Key Muscles of Yoga

Massage therapy is well-known for decreasing stress on the body. Stress can inflict our bodies in many different ways physically and emotionally. Sometimes we are able to easily take away the stress in our lives. It could be as simple as changing jobs, putting on another coat for warmth, or changing your diet. But, what happens when something in life occurs beyond what we can change or control?

The last thing that any parent wants to imagine is what would happen if their child is seriously sick or injured. Thankfully, there are resources and charities to help families during these kinds of situations. Enter, The Ronald McDonald House, a non-profit charity that provides housing and meals for families who are travelling in need of healthcare for seriously ill and injured children.

We have a brave group of students from our Sacramento Campus who travel to do on-site massage at the local Ronald McDonald House as a part of their externship hours. They are providing massage for stress relief to families who, most likely, are in the most stressful situation in their life.

“Providing massage for these families and individuals not only helps me grow as a professional massage therapist, but also as a person,” says one student. “I cannot imagine going through what they have to, but helping them relax for even one minute gives them that extra boost in helping them to keep going.”

In this world situations arise that deplete our energy. Massage Therapy can play an important roll of returning us to a state of peace.

Being a massage therapist is certainly a practice of nobility. There are people all around us that are in desperate need of assistance towards relieving the stress in their bodies. By allowing ourselves to show compassion through nurturing massage, we can assist to break the cycle of pain not only of the physical, but of the emotional as well.

Breathe.
It seems simple enough. Inhale, then exhale. We do it all the time.
But do we do it well?

Breathing improperly creates a constant state of stress in the body. We can live without food for months, we can live without water for days, but we can live only a few minutes without air.

Yet most of us breathe inadequately. We rush through our lives breathing shallowly, and the cost is great. The stress this creates in our bodies diminishes our well being on many levels. Improper breathing can reduce immune function, cause depression, poor muscle function and recovery, and the inability to think clearly. And this is just a sampling of a very long list of the possible negative consequences of not breathing well. Decreased breath equals increased stress. Stress is the underpinning of many diseases and often exacerbates poor health conditions.

Here are some questions you can ask yourself to evaluate your current stress level:

• Do you sleep poorly and wake up still tired?
• Do you have aches and pains that seem to come from nowhere?
• Do you get frequent headaches?
• Are you irritable and/or short tempered?
• Do you find yourself easily frustrated?
• Are you tired all the time?
• Do you often feel like there just are not enough hours in the day to get everything done?
• Do you frequently suffer from colds, flues and other illness?
• Have you lost your enthusiasm for life?

These are just a few of the common complaints of people suffering from stress. Stress diminishes our quality of life, and breathing properly can restore it!

The bonus is breathing well can be done anywhere at any time. To breathe properly simply let your belly relax and expand as you draw air in through your nose. As you continue to inhale let your ribs expand, and then finally fill your lungs to the top. Then reverse that process as you exhale through your mouth. Make sure that you empty the lungs completely before you take your next breath. It’s that simple!

…And the benefits are immediate. You will find that after just a few short minutes of breathing well, you can think more clearly and that ideas and solutions to problems come more readily. You will feel calmer and more peaceful, ready to handle the challenges of life. You will be more energized. Your muscles will relax and need much less effort to move. In short, life will be easier and you will be happier.

Create new breathing habits for yourself. Use daily activities as a cue to remember to take a deep breath: waiting at red lights, taking a shower, laying down to sleep, preparing a meal, entering and leaving your home. Anything can become a cue to remember to breathe deeply and fully, and soon you will find that it becomes automatic.

So why not start right now?! Inhale slowly and deeply, exhale fully and have a great day!

NHI Teachers practice what they teach during their annual Staff Day in Tilden Park. Every year, NHI staff gather together to reflect on the past year and discuss how we can improve the student experience. This year we were inspired by our guest speaker and had presentations given by each campus on Connectivity.

The San Francisco Campus ended the day by giving a Dance Lesson. Dance, at a Massage School? Hmm…?

One of the many lessons we try to impart on students is the importance of helping clients live healthier lives through massage but also through self care! Dance provides us with the opportunity of incorporating a fun physical activity in our busy days. It also lifts the spirits and balances the energy in our bodies – not to mention letting us tap into our inner child!

Traditionally, before class we might do some Tai chi, Chi Gong or Yoga to prepare us physically for bodywork and mentally for learning.  So we thought, why not dance?  Dancing provides not only an entertaining way of getting physical activity in our lives, it also helps us with flexibility, stamina and gracefulness.

We chose Bhangra, a dance originitating from the Panjabi region of India – it was first danced by men as a celebration of the harvest.  Its movements mirrored the activities performed in the fields for a particular crop.  We were inspired by the music and the grace needed to dance to it.  We found ways of connecting traditional steps to moves done during massage like the all so famous Effleurage and Body Mechanic Principles like working from Neutral and using your Whole Body.

Pediatric Massage Master Teacher Tina Allen rolled into NHI’s San Jose campus recently to talk about the value of massage for infants and children.  Allen, the founder of Liddle Kidz Foundation travels North America with her husband and young son in a customized tour bus giving workshops and presentations about the benefits of touch therapy for the youngest among us.  Although massage is often still seen by the general public as an annual luxury or first aid for a sore back after a weeketnd of cleaning up the yard, it can also support healthy, well children in the normal process of growth and development, as well little ones who are struggling with complex medical conditions.  And Tina Allen should know: She managed the United States’ first comprehensive pediatric massage program at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles and recently consulted on the development of a comprehensive pediatric massage therapy program at The Mayo Clinic.

A fun way Tina shared of introducing massage to children is through massage stories.  Using a combination of light strokes such as hand glides, palm circles, finger taps, and cupping, she guided the group of 30+ San Jose students, staff, and faculty through a familiar story: the change of weather from a bright sunny day to one with lots of snow.  It even included a guest appearance by a pair of cats on the top of a chimney!  Ms. Allen encouraged NHI students to develop their own massage stories and to try them out on the children in their lives.  Whether it’s a massage story about making a pizza, planting a garden or taking a swim in the ocean, it’s Tina Allen’s conviction that children who have a positive experience with healthy touch early on in their lives will grow up to be peaceful leaders in the world.  Tina feels so strongly about this vision that she organizes, trains, and leads volunteers on trips to orphanages abroad.  Previous sites included Japan, Vietnam, and Thailand, with Ghana slated for later this year.  She is also a certified trainer of Peaceful Touch.

One of the things that we hear consistently during graduating speeches is how the educational experience at NHI goes so much deeper than massage therapy itself.  It is so wonderful to see students who feel like they have not only learned how to build a successful career as a massage therapist but have also boosted their overall confidence, have have overcome some lifelong struggles and have connected with a very tight community that they feel like they will be a part of for years to come.

Every year for during our annual Staff Day at the National Holistic Institute, we have made it a tradition to read aloud stories of our students’ personal experiences with NHI.  This year we decided to do it a bit different by letting the students share it themselves.  Two graduating students from Group 1 at the NHI Emeryville campus, Saideh Houston and Anne Nelsen, got to have a few minutes in the spotlight to kick off our new series of student and graduate videos.  Cheri Brown, a 2009 Group 47 grad who now has a thriving private practice also shared her story about how NHI helped her to overcome her struggles and become successful and confident in her career.

Congratulations to all of our graduating seniors and a special thanks to Saideh, Anne, and Cheri.  We are looking forward to hearing from many more students and graduates in the future we are also excited to announce another video series with John Caguin (The NHI Guy) who will be giving insight into lots of interesting massage therapy modalities and techniques as well as a sneak peek of campus life and the NHI community.

We hope you enjoy!  Please keep an eye on our Facebook and Youtube pages for more videos in the future.

I can’t tell you how excited I was the other day to get the best massage I had ever had;  it was a dream come true.

He too was a Graduate of NHI.  He definitely knew his stuff and the most distinguishing thing was the confidence that came through in his work.

Like me, he started out Prone (positioned lying flat) and worked the back a ton; long ironing strokes that I guess you could say were effleurage, but kneaded the muscle as they ran from neck to sacrum. I think he used every tool available, hands, fists, sides of the hand, whole forearms and the elbows too.  He then did awesome work on my Traps that really pulled the Traps away from where they had been living just under my ears. It was like lower neck work and back work combined.  Somewhere in there he was working the arm, Axilla, Scapula, and Deltoids too.  It felt like my Scapula got thoroughly moved & flipped around and put back a little lower than when I brought it in to be worked on and the Delts & arm felt like the way a towel feels when you wring it out after falling into the pool.

As I had hoped, he finally got around to working on my legs, I have very long legs and I always hope that people really get as much of the muscle worked on as possible. Well this therapist did and I think it’s because he was a cyclist too. Hams, Adductors, the IT Band, all worked on with tons of movement for the Knee and a reshaping on my Gastrocs & Soleus. It was most certainly not the typical lighter Swedish, it was deep ploughing & ironing that made my legs soo happy mostly because the work definitely felt like it didn’t just address the area we call the “Back” of the leg but all around the leg.  He rolled it around in different directions to be able to better access the sides that were not just facing up. When he was done I could only say that my legs felt “Floppy” and I loved it.

Thorough, professional, deep but also very in tune with what he was doing as to not work too deep on the knots or just think one pressure is good for every part of the body. He watched my reaction and adjusted the pressure accordingly.

Finishing with some forehead swipes & scalp work was just a wonderful way to close out this massage that I would come back for again & again if I could. The massage was perfect! But alas, I only received it in my own imagination. Haven’t we all dreamed of receiving the same massage we give to others?!

The Golden Rule really applies everything, including  massage. “Do unto to others as you would have them do unto to you”.   Stay present in your work, use empathy and ask yourself what everything would feel like and be open to the feedback of the clients as if you were hearing the compliment or criticism from yourself.

~Mark Nielsen, CMT and NHI instructor extraordinaire :)

I recently celebrated ten years of teaching at the National Holistic Institute, and this gave me an occasion to consider some of the life-enriching aspects of a career in bodywork.

Consider this: have you ever had a job you disliked? Perhaps you’ve even had a job you hated?!  If the answer is “yes”, then you already know what a drain it can be to have to work a job when your heart just isn’t in it. But then there is the economy! In this financial day and age, there are plenty of people who would settle for any work! Work can cause stress, to be sure… but not working can stress us even more.

So having work, it seems – particularly, work we can be passionate about – is a blessing.

The term “work” has interesting connotations. In some contexts, work could be synonymous with something arduous, something unpleasant. But in the spiritual tradition of Alchemy, the term “Work” has a very different implication: transformation! Not simply the transformation of lead into gold, the Magnum Opus, or ‘Great Work’, of the alchemists was about transformation generally – darkness into light, ignorance into knowledge, matter into spirit.

I would argue that, in this Alchemical Way, work we love can transform us, teaching us the lessons and providing us with the challenges we need to progress along the Path of our lives. Bodywork especially, with its emphasis on self-knowledge, compassion, safe space, and connection to another person, causes us to get real, to honestly confront our fears and limitations… and to overcome them so that we can continue to facilitate the healing of our bodies, our communities, and our planet.

Work that you love can transform you. Do you have Work You Love?

~William Mathis
Mentor, NHI Petaluma Campus

We want to share with you what a thrilling evening we had here in Sacramento last night! We had over 72 guests at our Open House/Ribbon Cutting event which included the Sacramento Metro Chamber of Commerce.  So many contributed to this very special joyful event to make it a huge success! Our students from group 70 gave samples of chair massage (we had all 4 chairs set up and they were working non-stop), we had floor Shiatsu massage, our shining star senior, Dynasty Castro gave Hot Stone aromatherapy hand and arm massage, Lucas manned our science table and we gave away loads of door prizes! The entire Sacramento team threw themselves into this making it a spectacular event in their own unique ways and with their wonderful beaming selves, and the entire campus looked beautiful.   And check out the AMAZING cake made by Amy Atkins! 

We look forward to watching our new campus grow and become connected with the rest of the National Holistic Institute community!  We also recently began our student massage clinic and had a wonderful first weekend - John Lambert and Lucas Nevarez have done a great job working with our wonderful students!  If you are in the Sacramento area and you need some more incentive to get down to the clinic, you can get $5 off your first massage just by liking our Sacramento Facebook Page!

There is a ritual that every National Holistic Institute student takes part in. This ritual happens all the time, even during the 1^st bodywork class they step into.  We all sit in silence for the first few minutes of class. Only the sounds of the softly playing music fill the space for those few minutes that day. In that quiet time, we encourage everyone to practice a meditation, to help them prepare for the class ahead.

The question I hear often in one form or another is; “why” and/or “how”? [Read more →]