After your first treatment, I like to check in and see how you are feeling and responding to treatment. One of the reasons I do this is that when you come back for your next treatment, it is often hard to remember what you felt in the first few days after treatment, this information is useful to me in planning your next treatment. The comment that comes up following most first treatments is “I slept like a log” this comes from folks who have come in saying “I don’t sleep well” and those who think they sleep just fine.
Sleep and stress levels are things that we can often think are better than they are, but poor sleep and high stress levels can creep in gradually, we get used to them and the effects that come with them and think we are doing just fine, most of us are probably more stressed and sleep deprived than we think. The two will spiral together, if we don’t sleep well or long enough then our stress levels increase, if our stress levels increase our sleep quality is likely to decrease… This cycle leads to low energy, mood swings, poor nutrition choices, less focus, more aches and pains and many other such symptoms.
Quality of sleep is a very important element of self care which is easy to overlook, we assume this is something which will take care of itself, but there is a lot we can do to try to make sure we make the most out of it. Sleep is when our body gets a chance to rest, refresh and heal itself, I cant think of a more important factor in self care than this.
There are many things which we can easily integrate in to our daily routine to help this, such as not eating within a few hours of going to sleep, camomile tea before bed, developing a bedtime routine which prepares our body and mind for sleep, having some screen free time for an hour before bed…Different things will work for different people, there are many source out there giving advice on the best way to aid good sleep, my advice is try all that you can and find the ones that fit best for you so that you can be consistent. The main thing is not to put pressure on yourself to sleep well, this in it self can be a big stress for many people. Shift your focus to helping out your body, encouraging it towards a good sleep pattern, have patience and if you struggle to sleep, do something else relaxing, then go back and try again when you feel ready.
As I have mentioned, stress levels play a large role in sleep issues, even if we are not aware that we are stressed, we have an amazing ability to store up stress, physically and emotionally so that we can just carry on. Getting a regular holistic treatment which you respond well to will help to reduce the stored stress in your body, allowing it to let go more easily and sleep better or longer. The cycle will work this way too, if you have treatments or find activities which reduce your stress levels, you will enjoy better quality sleep, your body will have more chance to re balance and restore itself, you will have more energy and focus, your stress levels will be reduced.
Recently I was asked why do people go for regular treatments, is this massage not a luxury, a “nice to have” not a “need to have” and I think that yes, if you live a relatively stress free life, this may be the case. But stress is a survival mechanism, there for when we need to escape from danger and handle emergency situations, we have evolved in to a society where many people live with high levels of stress and pressure on a daily basis, it builds to a level that we struggle to naturally take a break and recover from the stress. Just as now we outsource our movement, exercise and gathering food, many of us need to outsource stress management to enable us to live healthy balanced lives. Just as we think nothing of a gym membership to ensure our physical fitness, we should consider regular holistic therapy to maintain our physical balance and reduce the levels of stress in our lives.
The Barefoot therapist 