01.16.07

Healing Touch

Posted in Anything goes, Health-related--Natural Alternative Treatments, Uncategorized at 12:51 pm by Administrator

The importance of touch to health is recognized in both the medical community and the non-medical community. Studies have shown that infants who are never touched or carried have a higher rate of failure to thrive (death) than those who have had human contact. One study I read years ago involved the help of mentally retarded girls. Their task was to just go in and hold orphaned, newborn babies. Just the mere physical touch and closeness appeared to reduce the number of infant deaths from those babies who were left with no one to come and hold them.
In Russell Blaylock’s book, Excitotoxins, the Taste that Kills, he mentions the importance of touch in relation to the development of the brain and the nerves connected to it. He uses the example of the practice of some animals to lick their newborn babies immediately after birth. Some believe that this practice is to remove the placenta, however, this process appears to also be important to the baby animal’s ability to thrive. Blaylock asserts that the act of licking the newborn baby animal is a way for the mother to stimulate the nerves in the baby’s body. This is extremely important to its physical development.

The above are a couple examples of the importance of touch in the very young, but how is it related to older people, or the very old? As we age, we cease to be the little cute kid that gets the deluge of hugs. It becomes inappropriate to touch one another especially with the fear of being accused of molestation. So generally, how much we are touched during each day, in many cases, is reduced as we get older. Does this reduction in touch negatively affect our health in any way, particularly among our elderly? Would the health of our elderly be much improved if they were touched more? Is the reason that various massages appear so helpful partly due to the fact that the human touch is so essential to our well-being? Should touch be included in any healing practice? I think yes.

As part of a healing regime, I think daily hugs and holding hands can be a simple way to give a person great comfort. Any type of comfort likely also helps our emotional health as well. If possible various massages should also be considered as part of a healing regime. One interesting form of massage that I recently found is called the Bowen Therapy. This therapy was originally designed by Tom Bowen to help heal sports injuries, but with time it developed into a special technique to help stimulate the healing of other ailments such as back or neck pain, headaches and migraines, chronic fatigue, colds and flus, stress or depression, pre-menstrual syndrome, edema, asthma, skin problem, etc. Interestingly, many of the manuevers used in the Bowen therapy lie on meridians that correspond with Chinese meridians. I purchased a book called, Bowen Therapy, Tom Bowen’s gift to the World, by Frank Navratil, BSc. N.D. Although I don’t feel I currently have many health ailments that need dire attention, I do plan to explore this therapy a bit, and hopefully I may have some positive information to update.

Marlakins

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