Bowen Therapy

How does Bowen Therapy work? (Part One)

There are quite a few reasons why Bowen therapy works so well.  One is because of the effect it has on the autonomic nervous system.  Brain mapping has shown during a Bowen session that the client’s brain produces Alpha waves and causes them to feel like they are in a deep meditative state.  At this point, the body goes into automatic repair mode because the sympathetic nervous system (heightened alert response) stops overriding the parasympathetic (rest and relaxation response).  The bottom line is that it places the client in the most advantageous state to allow the body to heal itself.

Because of this, Bowen therapy not only applies to physical conditions but also to challenges like PTSD, ADD/ADHD, autism, sensory integration disorders, etc.

There are other ways that Bowen therapy works to help healing take place, which will be covered in the next posting.

How do you help relieve your own low back pain?

Brenda Briscoe

Ever wake up with a stiff low back or just a bit of low back pain?  Outside of chronic, severe low back pain, there is a little-known trick that can be of tremendous help.  Do you have access to a treadmill?  Maybe you have one at home, or your friend has one, or you have a membership at a gym or rec center.  If you can somehow get on a treadmill, you’re in luck.

Place the speed at 2.0-2.5 and same with the incline.   This speed is slow enough that you shouldn’t be wobbly and off-balance.  This much of an incline ensures that you are leaning backward just a bit, which changes the way you move – your gait. In other words, because backward walking eliminates the typical heel-strike to the ground (the toe contacts the ground first), it can change the way your pelvis is aligned, alleviating pressure that may be causing the low back pain.  It also puts less strain on your knee joints, making it ideal for those with knee injuries or problems.

Interestingly enough, backward walking has neurological benefits as well.  Some call it “neurobic” activity because it requires brain activity that can help you stay sharp mentally.  When you walk backwards, your heart rate tends to rise higher than it does when walking forward at the same pace, so you can get greater cardiovascular and calorie-burning benefits in a shorter period of time.

Every time I get low back discomfort or pain, I walk backward that day or the next and it goes away the same day.  Works every time!  If you wait too long or the pain is severe, do not hesitate to get it looked at by your physician, or try Bowen Therapy right away to see if that doesn’t eliminate it altogether.

Learn from your cat

Take a lesson from your cat. Have you noticed that when cats wake up they stretch? When you awake in the morning, you’ve probably been sleeping in some funny position all night or for too long. To get your spine in correct alignment before getting out of bed, start this habit.

Raise your hands above your head, point your toes, and stretch for a count of 10. Then, roll over on your side, bend your knees and push up (rather than coming straight up). Place both feet on the floor, put your hands on your knees, giving yourself some leverage, and push on your knees to help yourself stand up with less stress to your spine.

This is how I encourage my clients to arise in the morning and any time they are getting up from a chair or out of their car, etc. It encourages your body to be symmetrical. It is also how I have them get off the table after a Bowen Therapy session. In addition, putting both feet on the floor simultaneously after therapy makes a neurological impression, or blueprint, of the session, potentially causing it to last longer.

Another Migraine Wiped Out in Minutes

I was at work one morning this week when a co-worker mentioned she had a splitting headache.  She felt it was becoming a migraine.  I told her to give me 30 minutes with her on my massage table.  I did the Bowen migraine procedure on her.  Afterwards, she reported that the headache felt very dull.  I saw her about an hour later, and she said the headache was no longer there.  She appreciated being able to work all day without that horrible pain.

Bowen Therapy is so amazingly simple for the profound results it brings.  People are always surprised when their pain leaves because it seems like I hardly did anything.

Migraine vanished!

The most dramatic use of my Amega Amwand recently was in the case of a woman who has frequent migraine headaches.  When I greeted her in the reception area, she was holding her head in her hands because the light increased her discomfort.  Before we began our bodywork session, she reported her headache pain being a 10 on a scale of 0 to 10 (10=most painful).  Before starting the Bowen Therapy treatment, I used the Amwand, moving it in a clockwise circular motion around her head.  She could feel the energy of the wand, stating that her headache was subsiding a little.

I used the energy wand at different intervals during the Bowen Therapy session.  At the end of her treatment session, she stated that her pain had subsided to a 3 on a 0-10 scale.  The next morning an excited client called to say that her pain had TOTALLY  disappeared.  And her most remarkable comment was that these headaches usually last for 7 or 8 days.  It has been about 6 months, and this client has not needed to come in again for another treatment for headaches.

One Response to “Migraine vanished!”

 Kyle R Threlkeld says:

I’m sureI have never had migraines, but I experience headaches as an on-going lifestyle almost all of the time—a long time ago I simply accepted it with a self-resolution to be Tough. These are greatly exacerbated by arthritic pain in my neck(C3).Chiropractic helps, but only in a temporary way. I wonder if Bowen could alleviate this too with some permanence?

Too Tired to Sleep?

Did you know your body has to have energy to relax and fall asleep?   And when the body’s energy levels are too low, sleep is disturbed.

A state of nervous fatigue is usually brought on by a bout of chronic, unremitting stress, which results in adrenal exhaustion.  We usually don’t have trouble going to sleep but STAYING asleep.  This kind of insomnia compounds a person’s stress level, because they know they are tired and need to sleep but can’t.  This creates more fatigue, greater stress, and continued sleep disturbance – a vicious cycle that must be broken for healing to occur.

There is an answer, and you can discover it here.

Herbal remedies mentioned in the linked article can be purchased at wholesale prices with a free membership to NSP.  Click on “Free Membership with $40 Purchase.”   Stress, fatigue, and sleep disturbance can also be helped by Bowen Therapy.

Chihuahua Got His Bounce Back

An elated owner of my most recent pet client, a 3 1/2 year-old chihuahua, just called to tell me her exciting news.  She asked me to post this for her because she does not have a computer.  So, here it is:

“Blue’s left leg had suddenly become useless.  I don’t know what happened, but overnight it seemed he refused to use it.  I took him to Brenda.  She worked on his back, hip, leg and knee using Bowen Therapy.  Within 24 hours, after nearly a week of not using his leg, he was putting weight on it.  And now two days later he is totally recovered and has just bounced up on the bed for the first time since this happened.”

With animals, success is the norm.  They don’t think through it and analyze it; they just receive it and respond so well.  That is why it is such a joy to work on animals.  And the love they give back after their treatment is the most rewarding thing.  I’ve never done a treatment on a dog that didn’t lick me like crazy afterwards.

Bowen Therapy for Children

Bowen Therapy is well-suited for children for so many reasons.  It can be done with very gentle pressure and still be effective.  It is done with clothing on, making them feel more comfortable.  Children are generally more active, thus helping the energetics of the therapy to work better and faster.  They do not have ideas about whether a treatment is going to work or not.  Their minds don’t really go there.  So, they tend to be more receptive than adults.  Adults can be rather skeptical, especially if they have tried everything and to no avail.

I have seen remarkable results using Bowen Technique with children who have ADD or ADHD, autism, sensory integration problems, asthma, constipation and, of course, acute injuries to name a few.  In a typical Bowen session, there are required breaks, or pauses, between some of the procedures within a session.  But with children, the breaks are not needed because they process the nerve stimulation much more quickly, so the therapy session is over in less than half the time of an adult’s session.

Children report back to me, saying they are able to concentrate at school better and feel less anxious.  Parents see a difference in their attitudes in that the children are easier to be with and are much more cooperative.  Tasks at home and at school which had been a problem in the past seem to be done with ease after getting a treatment.  The children tend to be willing to eat healthier because their glandular systems become more balanced.  They don’t crave the snack foods and sugar so much.

Acute injuries – e.g., recent muscle pulls and strains, sprains accompanied by swelling – are resolved much quicker than in an adult having the identical injury.  So, for young athletes, this is a great treatment, as it rarely takes more than one session to get back into their athletic activity after an injury.

If you know an athletic child or one who is accident prone, their parents may want to know about this gentle but profound treatment which quickly resolves injuries by unravelling neuromuscular compensations, activating the nerves and sometimes creating new nerve pathways.

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Bowen for Animals

Have you ever seen a dog or cat get bodywork?  It is so amusing.  First, they look back at you as if to say, “What are you doing?”  A few moments later, they are relaxing and melting underneath my hands.  Animals have no preconceived ideas about whether what I am doing is going to work or not.  They are not thinking, “She’s hardly doing anything — how could this work?”  They simply feel comfortable, they trust and their bodies respond beautifully.  The same usually goes for babies and young children.

Adult humans have gone through so much of life that they often are skeptical and their closed minds can put up a physical or emotional block, so that the bodywork cannot have its optimum effectiveness.  Not so with children and animals.  They just love it!

I once worked on an elderly poodle who had just had a stroke.  He couldn’t walk straight, but veered to the right, so that he ended up walking in a big circle.  He also could not go up and down stairs at his home.  I did a Bowen session on this pooch, and immediately he began walking straighter and was able to carefully maneuver the stairs.  A few more sessions and he seemed to be back to normal.

A client asked me to come out and work on her 2-day old colt, as he was not able to successfully nurse and get milk from his mom.  He also was very unstable on his feet.  I worked on this beauty for less than 5 minutes, and they called me the next day saying that the colt was nursing fine.  Before I even left that day, he was not only steady but was also running around and playing.

If you have a dog, cat, or other pet story about how they responded to Bowen Therapy or any other bodywork, let’s hear it.  I know so many animal lovers that will enjoy these stories.

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