Reflexology – Science or Science Fiction?
Most commonly, reflexology is carried out on the feet and the hands, so let us begin by defining what foot and hand reflexology is in the simplest of terms. Imagine someone would draw your entire body on your feet and on your hands where everything drawn on the right foot and the right hand corresponded exactly to the right side of your body and everything drawn on the left foot and left hand corresponded exactly to the left side of your body. When you’d look at the soles of the feet or the palms of the hands, you would be able to see the area of the heart, that of the lungs, the spine, the kidneys, the bladder and so on. These mirror areas of the body are called reflex areas – or reflexes – and reflexology is the science of the reflexes. Reflexology rebalances body chemistry by accessing the actual organs and various parts of the body through the mirror areas in the feet and hands. How? Using the 7000 nerve endings in each foot, using the blood flow, using the lymph flow, and possibly the acupunctural meridians as well. In the hands of a well-trained reflexologist – and this is an important point – reflexology will stimulate and optimize nerve flow, blood flow, and lymph flow to the area of the body being treated in the feet or the hands, thus minimizing pain as well as muscle tension and facilitating the body’s natural healing and detoxifying processes in that particular area. This is done by deep pressure thumb and finger techniques which reproduce the effect of walking barefoot in nature on different uneven surfaces such as stones, sand, grass, branches and so on. Too good to be true? Sounds more like science-fiction than science?
Then allow me to present the science to you. In the 1930’s, Eunice Ingham, an American physical therapist, developed Western Reflexology as we know it today. She is the one who mapped out all the reflex areas of the hands and feet. She did it by trial and error on thousands of patients working closely with a physician, Dr. Riley, and without any modern equipment. She knew what the complaints of her patients were and she looked for the corresponding areas in the foot which appeared to be “congested” and sore. This is how, over the years, she mapped out the reflex areas of the feet. Also, she realized that when she treated those areas with deep pressure, the complaints of her patients improved or disappeared. Today, methodologically valid studies prove that she was right. In 1999, thanks to Doppler sonography for instance, Austrian researchers proved that reflexology on the kidney reflex increased blood flow inside the kidney. When reflexology was applied to reflexes other than that of the kidney, the measured blood flow inside the kidney was not altered. Only when the specific area on the foot corresponding to one of the kidneys was stimulated by deep reflexology techniques did the amount of blood flow inside the corresponding kidney become greater. This means that more oxygen and more nutrients were immediately brought to the kidney to improve its function by the simple means of doing reflexology on the kidney reflex. For those interested, here below is the reference to the study.
“Changes of renal blood flow during organ-associated foot reflexology measured by color Doppler sonography” by Sudmeier I., Bodner G., Egger I., Mur E., Ulmer H., Herold M., Forsch Komplementarmed. 1999 Jun; 6(3): 129-34
One of the most valid and truly interesting studies on the effects of reflexology was carried out by the Oregon Research Institute and published in 2005 in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society. The study demonstrated that cobblestone-mat walking significantly improved the health of older physically-inactive adults (between 60 and 92 years of age) over 16 weeks. This was measured by various physical performance tests, balance tests, and blood pressure changes. Here below is the reference to the study.
“Improving physical function and blood pressure in older adults through cobblestone mat walking: a randomized trial” by FUZHONG LI; FISHER K. John ; HARMER Peter, Journal of the American Geriatrics Society ISSN 0002-8614, 2005, vol. 53, no8, pp. 1305-1312 [8 page(s) (article)] (27 ref.)
This study is extremely significant because it shows that the health of the elderly people who walked on the cobblestones three times per week unquestionably improved much more than that of the elderly people who did the normal walking on a flat surface (the control group). In other words, the pressure caused by the cobblestones made all the difference. One should look at reflexology as the re-enactment of natural barefoot walking on different uneven surfaces. If you think about it, this the way nature intended for us to live – walking, not sitting all day like we do. What the study implies is that there is a natural rebalancing system of our body functions (our health) integrated in our feet which is being stimulated by deep pressure. And in the original plan, this pressure would have come from walking barefoot in nature. With modernization and daily sitting, this system is not being used anymore. That’s where reflexology comes in. As a matter of fact, every city in Asia has a cobblestone health park.
Researchers in some universities are now looking at what happens inside the brain when you stimulate certain reflexes. The first results are very encouraging and in the coming 20 years I am certain that many of the benefits of reflexology will be fully explained by scientific measurements and observations.
Be aware that there are two types of reflexology. The first is the type of reflexology that is often given in spas: this is more like an improved foot massage than anything else and cannot be considered clinically relevant. The second is the type of reflexology the above studies talk about: it activates the body’s natural healing and detoxifying processes and reduces pain as well as stress levels. With this type of reflexology, which some reflexologists like myself prefer to call medical (or clinical) reflexology, many medical conditions and their associated symptoms – especially pain – will improve in a matter of a few sessions.
Florence Cohen is a certified Medical Reflexologist from the International Institute of Reflexology who specializes in back pain. You will find more information about reflexology in general, its benefits for all medical conditions, and the exact science behind it on her informative website http://www.reflexology4backpain.com
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