Touch activates wellness, a positive mind and joy of life. Getting touched gently or massaged promotes attachment, bonds of trust, emotional well-being. It is comforting, soothing, and it decreases stress and anxiety.
Each living species has a dominant sense, on which its survival depends. For a dog, it is smell, for a bat, it is sonar, for an eagle it is sight. For a man in adulthood, sight and hearing are predominant in his relationship with the world. But for a newborn, which has just come out of an enclosed, humid and black environment, the dominant meaning is touch. This is the first sense to develop in the fetus.
Touch plays a very important role in terms of human health. Several studies show how the infant needs to go into contact with his external environment via touch. We also know the importance of touch in the psychological development of children: deprived of physical contact, they can plunge into a depressed state, as evidenced by the sad Romanian orphanages dating from Ceausescu. Premature babies with which skin-to-skin contacts are maintained generally have fewer development problems, fewer infections, better weight intake, more stable cardiovascular rhythm and optimized sleep.
The skin holds memory, and the fact of touching our body in conscience helps rediscover scars, traces of our stories and experiences of life. Touch is related to intimacy and a kind, respectful or therapeutic touch, helps to produce endorphins and oxytocin, and a drop in cortisol. This results in a reduction in anxiety and stress, a decrease in pain, and a feeling of deep well-being. Gentle touch, skin contact and massage have the power to bring us back in the present moment, to reconnect to our sensations, to our feelings.
From an emotional point of view, massage can have restorative virtues. A baby cries when he is hungry, bad, or when he loses skin skin contact. In these three cases, he feels an anxiety of separation which will only be relieved in maternal contact. A person who has not been sufficiently secured by skin-to-skin contact with their mother may risk, in adulthood, to be prey to unexplained anxieties. They are the expression of an unsecured emotional security need, memory of an absent or distant mother when we needed to be reassured.
It is therefore clear that in addition to their purely therapeutic effect, massages can relieve anxieties due to emotional deficiencies. Manual treatments and therapies are a fabulous tool that allows letting go, deep relaxation, a sense of bliss. In my practice, massage now constitutes a great complement, a holistic supplement. I invite you to read or re-read my article related to Chi Nei Tsang, a massage that specifically addresses digestive health, and that I have been dispensing for a few months, with a lot of joy.
