You know you have anxiety when you spend a lot of your time worrying or obsessing about things, feeling overwhelmed much of the time, having repetitive thoughts, difficulty concentrating, insomnia and appetite changes.
Anxiety can be mild or quite severe, but no matter where you fall on the spectrum, anxiety can really interfere with your life. There are many proven methods for treating the condition, including medications and therapy. For many people this isn’t enough, or they want to complement their treatment with alternative forms of anxiety mitigation. Of course, it’s always important to discuss any alternative treatment methods with your mental health doctor before adding them to your routine.
However, in many cases, reflexology can really have benefits for your anxiety. Understanding it can help you decide if it’s right for you. In general, reflexology is a harmless form of complementary medicine that many people report as being highly beneficial for their condition. Anxiety is one that can really improve when you undergo reflexology. Here’s what you need to know about it before deciding if it’s right for you or not.
What Is Reflexology?
Reflexology involves stimulating various points in your body to help lessen the symptoms of a wide range of health problems. The basis behind the idea is that your body is interconnected in various ways, so stimulating coordinated parts of the body can help with certain health conditions. Studies have shown that reflexology can be beneficial for people suffering from anxiety for a multitude of reasons. Reflexology can help you manage your anxiety symptoms and when combined with traditional medicine can help you live a full and productive life despite your anxiety.
What Reflexology Points Are Associated With Anxiety
If you decide to add reflexology to your treatment plan, it’s important to find a reputable therapist. You can talk to your mental health doctor about getting a referral to someone who is experienced in treating anxiety with reflexology. Your therapist should be stimulating certain points on your body to have any benefits. This includes your solar plexus, which can tame an unsettled stomach due to anxiety and help produce a higher feeling of well-being in general. Stimulating your solar plexus can also help you breathe in a way that tames the symptoms of anxiety.
Working certain points on your head can also tame your brain activity, helping to reduce obsessive and repetitive thoughts so that you can control your anxiety. Working your adrenal glands can help lower stress, which is an easy way to help keep your anxiety in check. Working your pineal gland can help regulate your sleep-wake cycle. People who suffer from sleep disturbances due to anxiety can benefit from this because it will help them sleep better, helping to reduce feelings of anxiety due to stress and fatigue. Finally, stimulating the pituitary gland can help your body learn to react to stress in a healthy way rather than causing a flare-up of anxiety symptoms. Talk with your reflexology therapist about which points would be most beneficial to you based on what symptoms you experience as a result of your condition.
What To Expect At A Session
When you see a reflexologist, you can expect to sit or lie still while your therapist gently presses and stimulates the points that you’ve agreed might help you with your condition. It’s similar to massage and you may find yourself feeling really relaxed, as you notice a lessening of your anxiety. Chances are it may take several sessions to have the benefits translate to daily life rather than just when you’re in the session.
If you prefer, you can practice reflexology on your own. This allows you to use the techniques anytime anxiety sets in and you feel like you need some relaxation. You’ll need to practice the methods by allowing someone to teach them to you. It can be very helpful to take some classes so that you can do reflexology the right way. Once you’ve figured out what you’re doing, you can effectively manage your anxiety no matter where you are or what the situation is. This might include stimulating certain points on the bottom of your feet or the palm of your hand. This allows you to discreetly stimulate your pressure points and relieve anxiety in situations like work or a tense family gathering. By simply pressing on these points, you can alleviate anxious situations, no matter what’s causing them.
How To Combine It With Traditional Medicine
Most experts don’t recommend relying only on reflexology to manage your symptoms. While it can be incredibly helpful, it usually isn’t a good substitute for your treatment plan. The best way to make reflexology work for you is to combine it with medication and therapy. For many people, managing their symptoms with a prescription can help them get through anxiety-provoking symptoms. Most people also benefit from some type of talk therapy in which they can learn to control their response and behaviors when anxiety flares.
Working in conjunction with these treatment options, reflexology can help you feel less anxious while also giving you some measure of control over your own treatment. You can expect to begin seeing an improvement in your condition with regular practice of reflexology. As you begin to feel better, resist the urge to forgo your traditional treatment plan, as the combination of the two is likely producing the results you want, and skipping your medical treatment can result in a backward slide in your condition and symptoms.
Precautions To Consider
As with any form of complementary medicine, it’s always a good idea to understand the practice of reflexology completely before undergoing it. The most important thing to consider is that you probably won’t notice a change in your condition with just one session. For most people, undergoing regular and consistent reflexology sessions is the key to maximizing the benefits it offers to you. In some cases, people might not notice any benefits and would be better off seeking out some other form of alternative medicine.
For most people, reflexology can be an important way to complement their mental health treatment plan, but it’s not a good idea to expect a miracle to happen overnight. If having a therapist perform reflexology on you makes you uncomfortable, you may notice that your anxiety actually worsens. If this is the case, it’s probably better for you to choose a different form of treatment to reduce your symptoms. Work with your doctor to figure out what might be the most beneficial for you. If it turns out that reflexology isn’t it, there are lots of other options available to you, so don’t get discouraged. Perhaps combining several forms of alternative medicine will help and you can spend some time experimenting with what’s out there to find the combination that gives you the results you want.
