Chi Nei Tsang: A Detoxifying Massage for Emotional Release
We all feel great after having a massage, especially those of us who are tending to the mind-body connection through doing a regular yoga practice. Some people report feelings of bliss after a massage, but is this type of healing or therapy really sustainable? Can it actually make a lasting impact and truly heal the body? Can yoga truly heal the body, or do we need to go a bit deeper and look at the core issues which cause us to experience pain in the first place?
Many people who are beginning their yoga or meditation journeys, may start out wanting to do yoga for flexibility or for overall health reasons. When a practitioner goes deeper into yoga (and therefore deeper into the awareness of what the body and mind is trying to tell us), an awareness of needing to get to the emotional “root” of the pain, injury, or illness will occur.
Chi Nei Tsang
In addition to yoga, a surge of interest has occurred in relation to a massage technique done only on the organs in the stomach in order to get to the emotional causes of deep rooted dis-ease. This kind of detoxifying massage comes from China, and is known as Chi Nei Tsang.
Also taught in Northern Thailand, Chi Nei Tsang is an ancient Taoist practice which gently (yet deeply) works the organs on all levels–physically, emotionally and spiritually–in order to make them work more efficiently and to heal unprocessed negative emotions that the person has repressed throughout their life.
Chi Nei Tsang literally means working the energy of the internal organs. In a systematic manner, the abdomen is warmed with oil prepared with palming massage strokes, and then worked from the right side to the left side. They finish by grounding the person with other massage techniques on the legs, arms and face. Organs and arteries are worked on deeply and sometimes painfully. When there is pain or transference of sensation, there may also be toxins that show up as a yellowing on the practitioner’s gloves. You will feel some areas of both hardness and softness, and may experience an inability to breathe followed by a deeper ability to digest life and all its nutrients upon completion of a session.
When a person’s abdomen is blocked, large, or hardened, multiple sessions are recommended. It is much easier to give a session to a yogi who has also done deep internal work on themselves, such as emotional release therapies.
All of the body’s systems–digestive, respiratory, cardiovascular, lymphatic, nervous, endocrine, urinary, and reproductive –are addressed in a session. All emotion experienced needs to be processed on a physical level, and this is where discomfort can occur. In between intense times (such as the kidney point, for example), the the receiver may find themselves falling asleep.
It is important to emphasize that the Chi Nei Tsang practitioner neither treats symptoms, nor attempts to cure illness. Chi Nei Tsang addresses the whole person and can be of particular benefit to contemporary problems caused by stress such as sleep disorders; digestive disorders involving the liver, gallbladder or kidneys; nervous disorders such as anxiety and depression; and autoimmune disorders such as Lupus and chronic fatigue syndrome.
Additionally, Chi Nei Tsang can help to speed healing from injury or trauma and is known for its healing and almost mystical work with endometriosis and fertility, or sexual issues for women and men.
In the Tao system, each organ is known to hold different negative emotions. For example: the liver holds anger, the kidneys hold fear and the stomach holds worry. When massaged intentionally, these lower emotions can be eliminated in the body, and a shift can come (at anytime) for the person who has received a treatment.
It is a system designed to precipitate change by bringing awareness to the internal organs. It also makes you more aware on the emotional level of the body, thus inducing the body to heal itself. Regardless of if your condition is physical or emotionally manifested, there is no condition that is not addressed. It seems to have a mystical quality of healing that many are seeking for optimal health and as an addition to a physical yoga practice.
Giving it a try, or learning how to share it with someone else, can definitely give you the experience or change in bodywork that you may be looking for. Its greatest benefits occur for people fasting or doing a detox. Be sure not to eat anything at least three hours before a session.
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Why Do We Sleep? For More Reasons Than You May Think
Most of us spend about a third of our lives asleep, despite not really having an answer to the question, ‘why do we sleep?’ Now neuroscientists are realizing that sleep is more important than previously thought. They’re also realizing that the worn-out platitude, “you can sleep when you die,” is terrible advice, as that day will undoubtedly come sooner if you short yourself on a good night’s sleep.
According to most contemporary research, you should be getting around seven to eight hours of sleep every night, and if you think you can get by on fewer than that, there’s a really good chance you’re fooling yourself.
Why is Sleep Important?
While the exact mechanisms of sleep are still being studied, neuroscientists including Matthew Walker have made interesting learnings about what happens when we deprive ourselves of sleep and the impacts sleep (or lack thereof) has on society as a whole.
When we’re awake, Walker says that essentially, we’re causing low-level brain damage. By this, he is referring to the build-up of the sticky, toxic junk in our brain known as beta-amyloid. This accumulation of beta-amyloid has been found to correspond with the onset of Alzheimer’s, among many other adverse health effects correlated with a lack of sleep.
Sleep is beneficial as more than just a healing function; it also replenishes spent resources and regulates hormone levels that dictate our appetite, cognitive function, and motor skills. The two hormones that dictate whether we are hungry or full, ghrelin and leptin, have been observed to flare up and down, respectively, when we’re sleep deprived. This inevitably leads to an increase in hunger, but even worse, it leads our bodies to crave unhealthy and fattening foods — those heavy on carbs and light on greens. In fact, people who run on four to five hours of sleep per night tend to eat 200-300 more calories per day.
For men, sleep is an important regulator of hormones, most notably testosterone. Sleep-deprived males can have the same virility and strength as a man 10 years their senior. For women, a lack of sleep can lead to a significantly increased risk of breast cancer and drops in immune hormones.
According to Walker, just introducing a single night of just four hours of sleep among a normal eight-hour sleep schedule, can bring about a 70 percent drop in natural cancer-killing cells, the immune assassins that target malignant carcinogens. Every day our bodies produce these cells and others to fend off disease and maintain our health, and while a cat nap might make you feel refreshed, it won’t make up for the loss of these cells.
