Make the Most of Your Massage

Using your yogic awareness during bodywork can lead to a more profound experience.

By Timothy B. McCall, M.D.

Find the connections. In yoga practice, we learn to sense the ways that different parts of the body influence one another. In standing poses, for instance, creating space between the toes helps us open through the legs and into the hips. In Savasana (Corpse Pose), letting go of the jaw facilitates release of tension in the tongue and throat. During a bodywork session, can you notice whether your chest relaxes a notch as the practitioner works on your neck? Or can you find a perhaps more unexpected connection, like sensation in your right hip when your left shoulder is being massaged?

Use your breath. Your breath can do more than help keep you in the present moment; it can also help get you through some of the moments when bodywork becomes especially physically intense. I'm not sure that I could have tolerated some Rolfing and neuromuscular therapy sessions I've had without using deep Ujjayi breathing.

Take what you find back to your yoga practice. If you've paid attention during your bodywork sessions, you may have found opening or awareness in areas where you didn't have it before. During your next yoga practice, see if you can find that opennness again and perhaps go even deeper.

Don't sweat the theories. Some people shy away from certain types of bodywork because they doubt the explanations practitioners give for how those modalities work. Articles in medical journals, for example, ridicule the contention of craniosacral therapists that they adjust the skull bones, insisting this is impossible since these bones are fused early in life. But how something works is not as important as whether it works. And my experience suggests that many forms of bodywork (including craniosacral therapy) can be very effective.

Stay open-minded. If you are interested in exploring bodywork, be open to trying multiple styles. Be guided by word of mouth, particularly from people whose yoga practice or other experience has given them good body awareness. It would be great if there were more scientific evidence of effectiveness, but most bodywork methods have never been formally studied. There is also something ineffable that talented bodyworkers of all persuasions do that can't be captured in study results. If you wait for the kind of proof most doctors look for, you won't be able to take advantage of most bodywork styles in this lifetime.

Timothy McCall is a board-certified specialist in internal medicine and Yoga Journal's medical editor. He can be found on the Web at www.drmccall.com.

Page 1 2

See All Holistic Healing Articles »