Читать книгу Self Massage: The complete 15-minute-a-day massage programme - Jacqueline Young - Страница 9

To help your initial practice the self-massage techniques have been arranged in a sequence according to body part. This helps you to remember the massage movements and to make sure that no part of the body has been missed out.

However, this sequence is only a starting point. Once you become confident of the moves, and increase your sensitivity, you will be able to adapt the sequence to your own needs. You must decide the best way for you and be ready to change it as you yourself change.

In general the sequence moves from the top to the bottom of the body and from the inside to the outside. This is in order to balance energy within the body as a whole and to stimulate the flow of energy from the central organs through to the periphery. Many people today have a surplus of energy in the upper part of the body, through an excess of mental activity and stress, and a lack of energy in the lower body, often resulting from sedentary jobs. Typical symptoms of this energy imbalance are: headaches, eye problems and neck and shoulder stiffness, together with weakness in the legs, cold feet, digestive problems and low back pain.

By working from the top to the bottom of the body the surplus energy is drawn away from over-burdened areas and used to nourish areas with a weak supply. A marked improvement in many of the above symptoms can be obtained within a short time using self-massage.

The sequence is divided up according to five areas of the body:

1 Head and face

2 Neck, shoulders and arms

3 Chest and abdomen

4 Back

5 Legs and feet

There is also a brief warm-up section and additional sections on breathing techniques and finger exercises.

When you are first learning this system it is a good idea to spend a few days on each area exclusively, until you have mastered the sequence of moves. Once you are familiar with the massage for each area you can then start putting them together to massage your body as a whole.

Alternatively, you can add a new area of your body each time you practise. For example: learn the head and face massage one day; the next day perform the head and face massage followed by the massage for the neck, shoulders and arms; the next day add the third section, and so on until you cover your body in one session.

Once you are familiar with the system it should be possible to complete the self-massage within fifteen minutes, but the movements should still be relaxed and never hurried. Doing the moves within this amount of time has an invigorating effect on the body. For a more relaxing effect perform the movements more slowly and take as long as you like to cover the whole body.