Article Archive

Scientific Validation for Healing Touch

News Note

In an attempt to bridge the gap between the use of Healing Touch (HT) and the lack of randomized controlled trials, researchers from Barnes-Jewish Hospital (St. Louis, Mo.) recently studied the effects of HT on 78 subjects undergoing radiation treatment. Using strict criteria, the HT group received treatment from practitioners with a minimum of Level II certification. The control group received mock sessions from a layperson with no knowledge of HT. All subjects received six sessions (30 minutes each) of either HT or the mock therapy after radiation treatments.

Prevent the Afternoon Slump

10 Tips

If you’re like two-thirds of the population, you’ve experienced the afternoon slump. You know the feeling — it’s only 2 p.m., yet you feel drained and want to call it a day.

This drop in energy is not all in your head. It is a physiological response from your body. Fortunately, you can employ methods to reduce the slump’s frequency and to shorten its duration. When you utilize these 10 tips, you will turn the afternoon slump into a time of increased
productivity.

Alternative Therapies and Multiple Sclerosis

Searching for Comfort

One of the most devastating and frustrating diseases of our time, multiple sclerosis (MS) generally targets those in the prime of youth, between ages 20 and 40, wreaking havoc on their bodies and their lives. As yet, there is no cure. Nor is the cause clearly understood, although researchers suspect multiple contributing factors. MS is a chronic neurological disorder in which the immune system apparently and inexplicably attacks the protective myelin sheaths surrounding nerve fibers in the brain and spinal cord.

Relieving Postoperative Pain

Massage in Palliative Care

Pain is an individual experience and, as pain expert Margo McCafferey notes, exists whenever the individual says it does.1 The Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO), the governing body of safety and quality in medical care, agrees and has now designated pain as a fifth vital sign, along with heart rate, respiration, blood pressure, and body temperature. Recognizing the patient’s right to effective pain management, the JCAHO issued a mandate, beginning Jan.

Priorities: Spas From the Man’s Perspective

Spa Élan

Originally published in Massage & Bodywork magazine, August/September 2004. Copyright 2004. Associated Bodywork and Massage Professionals. All rights reserved.

Men are noticing there is a need to take care of themselves now,” says Patricia Eli, Spa director at the Hilton Waikoloa Village in Hawaii. “In the past 10 years, they have been expanding into spa treatments, trying more than massage and fitness. Women like frilly things; men want to see everything to the point, with results right away.”

The Star of Depth

Anatomist's Corner

Continuing last issue’s Structural Integration (SI) theme, let’s explore a tangent that has implications for everyone in the bodywork field. If there’s one thing that characterizes the approach to integrative bodywork, it is depth. Most of us were drawn into bodywork because we found a deeper experience of our own bodily self. And we choose to do this work to give that depth of experience to others. But how do you get deep? How do you convey the experience of depth? What does “deep” really mean in the context of the body?

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