The Missing Piece: Therapeutic Self Massage | Ep. 75 (Audio Only)

Hi everybody, this is Dr. Nicole and I'm here with Hadlee, and we're going to be talking today about a very interesting topic which actually generally gives me a slight amount of heebie-jeebies mixed with just like some discomfort and something that I typically lean away from. And so it's really good when those kind of topics come to light and then we have an opportunity to just explore, why do I feel the way that I feel about this? And I'm curious what you think. I'm curious if this conversation is something that is a no-brainer to you, if you use this exercise all of the time, or if you're with me and it just feels a little bit awkward. And then if so, why is that? And use it as an opportunity, as I am today, as we hang out with Hadlee and learn about this topic and try to understand where that feeling came from. And I know that what I'm going to be doing is an audit of why I feel the way I feel and try to identify where that came from, and then decide by the end of the conversation, do I still feel the way that I felt at the beginning of the conversation as I feel at the end? And if I feel differently, how do I want to reintegrate it? So I hope this is a really interesting conversation for you. I hope that you benefit a lot. And as always, I would love to hear your feedback and Hadlee would love to hear your feedback about how you feel about it, what your thoughts are, if you would do something different, or if you have a completely different approach. Like, let us know, send us a comment in our social media or send us a message. And then as always, if you haven't liked and— like and subscribe. We would love to keep going and keep this podcast alive, and your support means everything for that. So Hadlee, can you tell us about

Yes, absolutely. I'm really excited because I think that this is a topic that is very— it's underrated. We in the wellness space, we are becoming a lot more sensitive to mental health, which is incredible. And we're also becoming a lot more sensitive to nervous system regulation. and trauma and really, you know, kind of bringing to the forefront a lot of these underlying subconscious things, a lot of, you know, different, different ways to regulate the nervous system. And this is one topic that I'm not seeing. I'm still not seeing that many people talking about unless they are in the Ayurveda realm. And so that is— have we teased it long enough?

I feel like we've teased it for a minute. Can anybody guess? You probably read the title of the podcast.

Yeah, right, right. But so this topic is self-massage, and specifically the type of self-massage in Ayurveda is called Abhyanga. That's— it's A funky kind of word. It's A B H Y A N G A, abhyanga, and it essentially means self-massage. Most so, abhyanga is actually self-massage with oil, and we don't always have to use oil, and we'll talk a little bit about the different types of self-massage that we can use. But this is I think it's like a missing piece for the nervous system regulation conversation. I think it's a missing piece for a lot of different detoxification, like different physical symptoms, different things like that as well. And so I think it's really important and I'm really excited to talk a little bit more about it. I do see a lot of times people are talking about dry brushing. That seems to be a little bit more popular right now because it detoxifies the lymphatic system, and people are obsessed with detoxification right now, which is amazing. And it can be like— it can strip us of things, whereas the Abhyanga, the oil massage, is more nourishing. It's like adding on. It's making it so that we soften and we are able to kind of become more malleable, essentially. Right. Whereas like dry brushing is like a hard stiff brush that we rub all over our bodies, which is great in a lot of circumstances. Abhyanga is we're rubbing oil all over our bodies and it's just a very lovely, lovely, lovely experience. So yeah, that's, that's the topic today. Let's get into it.

So self-massage, what is the first thing y'all think of when you think about self-massage? And so when I think of self-massage, for me, it always goes to romance movies. I'm thinking rom-com, and self-massage or massaging others tends to be a very intimate, maybe even sensual activity. And so when I'm thinking from my clinical mind and clinical self, I need to identify a way to integrate this activity with another type of mindset that's not sexual, that's not sensual. Or it doesn't have to be exclusively so. And so I think that's part of where it feels uncomfortable for me is because that's my priming exposure, you know, growing up in a family where we don't touch or hug or do really much of anything like that, unless it's like a Dutch hug, which is more like, I'm gonna pat you really hard in the back as though you're getting the Heimlich maneuver and then back away awkwardly and don't make eye contact like that. It's kind of like the way that my, my Dutch hand sign So like this whole idea of self-massage is, is a great opportunity for growth. And so when, when you say self-massage, can you tell us what exactly that means? Are you like taking oil and like rubbing it on your forearm and like squeezing and twisting? Like, what are you doing exactly?

Yeah. So it's, it's, um, a lot of times people think it's a euphemism for like self-pleasure. Yeah. And so sometimes when I'm writing like self-massage on like social media and I'm like, people are— some people are going to think that I'm talking about something that's different than what I'm talking about, which is equally important and valid, but not exactly what I'm talking about. And so I haven't found a better word for it other than abhyanga, but I haven't found like a, like an English phrase for it that's better. But yes, self-massage is essentially— it's just rubbing your whole entire body. With oil, Abhyanga is at least rubbing your whole entire body with oil. You can do this without oil, and sometimes if I'm in a pinch, I will just use my hands and just rub, you know, rub on my forearm like you said, like rub on my arm. There's not. So if you Google it, if you look online and you go like, okay, Ayurveda Abhyanga, how to do it, it will it will tell you like. Okay, you're supposed to rub your body, like you're supposed to use oil on your hands and then rub your body on the long parts of your body. So like your arms and your legs, you're supposed to go up and down. You're always supposed to go toward your heart. And then you're supposed to go in like a circular motion on your stomach, like a clockwise motion. And I think those things are helpful. But I would just say use your intuition with it because I don't Unless you're like doing it in a way that doesn't feel good, I don't think it's— there's any wrong way to do it. So it's basically, it's just rubbing oil on your body. And there are some different ways that, you know, some different things that you want to keep in mind. First, let's, let's maybe go into some of the benefits of self-massage, just so we can sell you on it, on why you want to do it. And then we can go into like more the logistics. How does that sound?

I think that sounds great, and I have a proposal for a name, maybe like a rebrand.

And so, yes, please.

Maybe we could just add the word therapeutic to the front, like a therapeutic self-massage. Oh, like a sensual self-massage.

Yeah, I like that. Yeah,

sports self-massage, a Dutch massage, like whatever you want to call it.

Dutch, I love it.

Aggressive padding, if you didn't catch that a minute ago. Yeah. Yeah, I love that. And I do have data for some buy-in. And so one of the things that we see, like you touched on the neurological piece, is that there's a ton of research. And when you and I were talking about doing this topic, I was like, all right, what's the actual science say? And there's this study published in the International Journal of Neuroscience. And they were talking about the neurological changes that occur as a result of massage, and they measured it with objective urine assay testing. And so what they looked at in the testing were levels of serotonin, which is your feel-good neurotransmitter. Serotonin is how we affect depression and anxiety with antidepressants primarily, like Lexapro or Zoloft. And they saw that serotonin rose by 28% after a massage. And then dopamine levels, that's your feel-good neurotransmitter. It's like that thing that gives you purpose and drive that rose by 31%. And then they saw a reduction in the stress hormone called cortisol by 23%. And so neurochemically, one single massage caused these measurable changes in neurochemicals that was associated with increased mood and decreased perceived stress. So that's pretty convincing for me. And that's just getting a simple, straight-up massage.

Yes. So good. Yeah. Yeah. So I actually, I did a lot of research on this when I was in grad school because this was a really big piece of— and we'll get into some more of the benefits, but it was a really big piece of wanting to help people with So the obesity crisis, my partner and I, for one of the projects that we were doing in school, was there's a missing piece because there's this, you know, the education that's around obesity right now is like, eat this food, don't eat that food. This food is bad. This food is good. You know, all of that kind of thing. And that's the education. And there's a glaringly, glaringly obvious piece of that and that is that we need to incorporate a mind-body connection and use our intuition with our foods rather than just relying on like food rules. Because when we rely on food rules, then we start to have a weird relationship with food, if not a completely disordered relationship with food. And then that leads to, you know, it can lead to obesity, it can lead to other eating disorders as— or not other eating disorders, it can lead to eating disorders. And that can lead to all sorts of things. And so, so this mind-body connection, we were like, okay, what is the best way to, to, you know, create that? And, you know, we have yoga, we have meditation, we have these different things that are becoming a lot more popular now. And this self-massage piece, actually touching our own bodies with our hands Seems super— it's super taboo, right? Like, especially in the US with our, like, puritanical values, that is very common. That permeates kind of a lot of the culture here in the United States, but also in a lot of different cultures around the world. It is super taboo to touch yourself, right? Like, you know, kids are told not to touch themselves in class. Like, you're not supposed to do that. And of course, there's appropriate touching of ourselves and not. But, you know, it's, it's a really taboo thing. Anyway, so all of that to say that I did a lot of research on this when I was in grad school. And the, the exciting thing is that there's a ton of research on massage, like what you were just mentioning. There's not a ton of research on self-massage. So it seems like it's like We have come to a place where we're like, okay, we can get behind massage, someone else touching our bodies for us. But when we like us touching our own bodies, it's like sinful, it's shameful, it's, it's— there's like all of this stuff wrapped up in it, right? And especially if you've had any sort of physical or sexual trauma, it can be really, really challenging for people too. And that's kind of another discussion as well, one that we can, we can touch on. We won't go super deep into, but we can touch on that as well. So unfortunately, there's not a ton of research on just self-massage. There is on like massage from another person. However, I want to make the case today that there should be more, more research on this. There's also the aspect of the fact that you can't make money off of people doing self-massage, right? Like, like you can off of people doing massage. But I do— I want to see so much more research on this. And I think that it can be— it can be just as powerful in some ways. It can be more powerful in some ways than having someone else massage us as well. And I really believe that it's, it's very, very powerful to have someone else massage us too. So I don't want to you know, negate that at all. I think that there's a separate reason why we would want to do that, because we need human contact with other people too. Um, but, but so there is so much really, really great research on massage, and let's, let's dive into why we want to do it on ourselves as well.

So one of the big things that you and I were talking about before we started recording this podcast is the importance of moving blood and lymph. And so one of the fathers of naturopathic medicine, Henry Lindlar, that was his big thing, is that he said, as long as we can move lymph, help that get to the heart, help that stagnation get flowing so that the body can circulate it and detox it and remove it, that just simply accomplishing that can be really powerful for health. And I see that in mental health, especially the effectiveness of doing inversions where you put your legs up against the wall with your feet above your heart level, with your bottom against the wall, your legs straight up the wall, and just allow that lymph to drain, all that blood to drain, go to your heart, and then it gets reoxygenized, detoxified, all of that stuff. How people feel when they exercise, how it could just create all this delicious oxygenated blood. And so moving blood and lymph is wonderful. And so self-massage or therapeutic self-massage is another way of accomplishing that.

Yes. Yeah, it's so cool. It's so— it's great for the lymphatic system. So draining any, you know, draining the toxins out of our body. So for those of you who are listening who are like, what is the lymphatic system? It's basically For our, for our purposes today, like it helps to get all of the toxins that are in our body out of the body, essentially. And then we have our circulatory system, which is the blood moving throughout our body. And so it's also really helpful for that as well. So if you have like cold hands and feet, if that's your like your thing, which almost every woman I talk to has, cold hands and feet a lot of the time. This can be really helpful for that as well because it's helping your circulation to become more efficient and it helps to move things. And so, so it not only helps to get the toxins out, but it also helps to move our blood as well. So it's really, really helpful, especially as we are— we are recording this on October 3rd and we are, we are now in vata season. So we've talked about that before, but vata season essentially just means that it's getting colder, it's getting drier outside, it's getting windier, more mobile. And so we want to protect our bodies as much as we possibly can from all of the elements outside, right? The cold, the dry, the windy, the mobile, all of that kind of stuff. And so this is a really, really great way to do that.

So what else does self-therapeutic self-massage do for us? Why should I— yes, why should I step out of my comfort zone and touch myself as opposed to like walking around with like Stay Puft Marshmallow gloves on?

Yeah, right. Yes. So, so like I said, the nervous system regulation piece is so, so huge. I think that cannot be understated. I think I think that's a really big missing, missing piece. So meditation is really huge right now, obviously, like super trending. Everyone's talking about meditation and have been for a little while now. One thing that I see happening for people with meditation, unfortunately, is— and this used to happen to me all the time— is that they will be more stressed from meditating than when they first started because they're like, I'm not doing it right. I'm trying to clear my thoughts. I, you know, they're staying in their mind. They're trying to force their mind to empty with the power of their mind, rather than tapping into the grounding part physiology that they have. That is kind of— it can be a tool for actually bringing us into the just more regulation, nervous system regulation. So what we can do is self-massage. Is super helpful because you're literally placing your hands on your body all over your body, you can feel the structure of your body. Also, it feels really good to massage, like have massage, right? Um, and so it brings us into relationship with our body. And so that piece I think is missing. Meditation is a pretty advanced— like meditation in the way that we're talking about it a lot of times in our society right now is is a pretty advanced practice where you're like trying to empty the mind. And so getting into our bodies first and then doing that kind of meditation can be really a lot more effective and a lot more enjoyable too, because you don't want to be more stressed from meditating. That's not the point, right? So, so that's a piece of it, the lymphatic, the circulatory systems. And then also, of course, Muscle recovery, right? So if you've ever been sore from a workout and you, you know, give yourself like a little, you know, just kind of like rub it a little bit, you can tell that it helps, right? And it actually, it helps with recovery and it makes your recovery a lot more efficient as well. So that's, that's a piece of it too. There's— and then One of my favorite pieces, other than the nervous system regulation piece that really lights me up, is helping people actually improve their relationship with their bodies. So a lot of the people that I work with have— they just, they struggle with their relationship with food as well as their relationship with their bodies. And actually, almost everyone not just my clients, but almost everyone I talk to has at least some weird, wonky kind of relationship with food or their bodies. And this practice is— it's so effective in cultivating a respect for our bodies because a lot of times we're going through life, we kind of want to avoid looking at our bodies in the mirror. We kind of want to avoid like You know, either we want to get into like specific poses for pictures, we want to look a certain way. All of these things that, you know, social media, all of the societal pressures that we have on how our bodies are supposed to look, how our bodies are supposed to be. Self-massage kind of strips all of that away. Therapeutic self-massage sort of strips all of that away, and it's like This is my body as it is right now, and I'm just gonna give my body some love. And actually, the the word for oil in Sanskrit, which is the language used by the ancient Ayurvedic rishis, the word for that is sneha, S N E H A, and the same word sneha. Also means love. So oil and love are the same exact word in Sanskrit, which I love because it's literally—you are literally anointing your body with love. And so I just the the the metaphor for that just is is so powerful. And they knew this; they knew this, right? They knew that that was. the case there. That was not by accident. And so, so rubbing ourselves in that oil, literally dousing ourselves in love, builds that body love, that self-respect, all of that stuff that is missing when we just talk about body love, when we just are like, oh, you should love your body. Oh, you know, you should respect your body. You should be intuitive. Like, This is the actual practice that will get you there, essentially.

And I love that we can start to reclaim our self-love with this practice by actually putting it into practice and getting back in our bodies. I feel like there's such a trend towards becoming overly analytical, overly cerebral, if you will. And I think meditation kind of leans into that human tendency to, I'm going to get out of my body, I'm going to get out of that grounded space, and I'm just going to float in the absence of thoughts and the nothingness of thought. And I think Transcendental Meditation targets this slightly differently because you are focusing on a mantra. And so it's just like continuously kind of a hypnotic mantra as opposed to a lot of meditation is just to like notice and release, notice and release. And what I love about what you're describing, Hadlee, is how self-massage can actually bring you back into grounded sense of being, the grounded sense of being in your body, that more reassociating and refamiliarizing what it means to live in the body that you've been gifted, the body that you've been given. And I think that's a really great therapeutic tool to help keep us into what I call like the green light zone. I teach my patients about how green light is like calm and centered, and then your yellow light or orange light is like getting more amplified, whether it's stressed or angry or depressed or anxious. And then the red light is like that state of crisis and how we can keep ourselves or push ourselves into that grounded calm zone with touch and pressure, as opposed to trying to relinquish any sort of attachment to our bodies and going straight into meditation. And again, I think they both have value. I'm not trying to make a case against meditation, but rather How maybe using self-massage, therapeutic self-massage in conjunction with a good meditative practice can really kind of balance that headspace with that earthed space.

Yes, yes, exactly. Yeah, I think it's the missing piece for so many people. And, and especially if you are experiencing anxiety or if you're experiencing, you know, a dysfunctional relationship with your body, which most people are, and most people are, or they could still improve it. even if it's not like totally dysfunctional, right? Like, I'm still improving my relationship with my body. I'm still like, you know, dating my body, just like, you know, oh, I never noticed this new thing. Like, I didn't notice this. This wasn't here before. And, and, you know, practicing sort of that radical acceptance by being like, okay, and I'm going to rub that part too. You know, it's like everything. I'm just going to place my hands on it. And so a lot of times it can be I'm really glad you brought up the fact that you're like, it's a little like squeamish for me. I don't really want to, want to do it. Because I think that's the case for, for most people. I would— yeah, I would say at least the most people that I've, I've talked to. And I want to say that don't force yourself. To do it and just like get it over with, right? Because that is definitely not the purpose. That can like you can you can like retraumatize yourself with that. Like you don't want to just you know just do it, just do it to get it over with and you know kind of dissociate from your body as you're doing it. That's not at all what I'm what I'm saying that you should do. There are some some techniques to start to court your body, right? Start to date your body a little bit. Be like, oh, hey. And it doesn't have to be sexually, right? But it's just kind of like getting to know yourself a little bit more with your hands, not with your eyes. And I mean, that's great too, but with your hands so that it's more— it's more tactile, it's more tangible. And so, so what you can do is one of the ways is you can just keep your clothes completely on and you don't have to use any oil, right? You can just, you know, rub on your body. Even you don't even have to rub. You can just like place your hands on your body, maybe on your heart, maybe on your shoulder, maybe on your arm, maybe on your legs. You could start to rub it if that feels good. Just really allowing yourself to ease into that relationship. And then another thing that you could do if you really don't want to touch any, like most parts of your body, if there is a specific body part that you're like, okay, I can, I can feel comfortable with like touching this part of my body. So a lot of times people will touch like their— will just massage their own hand. Right? You know, your hands are probably the least activating parts of your body, right? Maybe your face. Maybe you're okay with touching your face, your head, your hands, maybe your feet, which is incredibly grounding. And so maybe you just start with your face, your head, your hands, your feet, or if you only want one of them, you can just start with your your feet or your hands or whatever one feels good to you. And so you just start there and you can use— you can start using a bit of oil if you want to, or you can just stick with no oil and that will— it will give you some different benefits. It won't be the exact same, but it'll be really, really still grounding for like the nervous system and for your relationship with your body and Even for your circulation and things like that as well.

I'm thinking about, there's this naturopathic remedy, it's called Lacaninum. And oftentimes individuals who need this remedy have so much shame over their body that all touch is really uncomfortable. Even their body touching their body can be really uncomfortable. And so an example is if somebody's So uncomfortable in their own skin that even if their fingers touch their other fingers, that, that's just too much. And so this, I think, would be a really great way to get back into that state of comfort with your body, is, is seeing what comes up for you. And so when you think about what Hadley is describing, it's like, okay, I'm going to massage my hands, but I feel so uncomfortable. It's like, okay, so where did that Mm-hmm. And this is where having a really great trauma-informed therapist can be just absolutely game-changing, is if there's something that's coming up for you, this is your body, your mind, these are your parts that are giving you an opportunity for deeper healing. And so like that, what I was talking about in the beginning is this discomfort that may come up with this topic. If you think about these techniques or you think about this topic And if you feel like those heebie-jeebies or you feel discomfort, is to notice what is actually coming up. And then a trained clinician can help you work through that. Because like Hadley was saying, is we don't want to like force you to just get it over with or force you to do something that feels really wrong, violating, or uncomfortable, but rather use this as an opportunity for deeper healing. And then as you slowly move towards being more comfortable with maybe just massaging your hands or your feet or your face or your head is to gauge your progress into becoming a more embodied self. And so I like that you're giving kind of some practical advice. It's like, okay, well, maybe just start with no oil, you know, maybe just like place your hands. One thing that you and I did in another conversation is you just had us place our, our hand on our shoulder and just feel the weight of that and very grounding. Placing your hands on your thighs, your upper legs, just feel like grounding weight. I like the idea of being able to like rub pressure points, acupuncture points. Just a hack, there's— if you follow the tips of your ears up to the top of your head, and then imagine that's that spot, there's the center of a square. And so then those spots on the corners of the square, you can massage those, and they can be very anti- Anxiety. They can be anxiety reducing. And so maybe keeping something very neutral like that. I like how you're giving us practical advice. Yes. So if I want to get the benefit of the oil, like you were talking about hydration and nourishing with the massage oil, can you talk us kind of through that? You'd mentioned also we're in vata season, and I know that the type of oil used may vary depending on your dosha that you're in or the season that we're in.

Yeah, absolutely. One other thing I want to just mention as you were talking there, if you are really, really uncomfortable, it also can be really helpful. If you're uncomfortable with actual— with like touching at all, it can be really helpful to just like, to like wave your hands over your body. So it's like you are, you know, you're just like a couple inches off of your body while you're, you know, instead of actually rubbing, you're like pretending to rub kind of. And that can also start to train your brain to get a little bit more comfortable as well. So that's another little tidbit. I love that. Yeah. So you can get more comfortable and you could, you know, you could pair that with like, I'm going to massage my hands because I feel okay with that. And then like, I'm going to wave my hands over my stomach, right? A lot of people have like a— that's like their, their area that they do not want to touch, right? And so they— that's kind of more what they do, right? And that helps us to get— still improve our relationship with our bodies and just kind of like dip our toes in a little bit, right? So, so yes. So, so the hydration piece, the oil piece is it's— we start to get more dry this time of year, right? We start to our skin starts to get more dry as well as our digestion starts to get more dry. You might feel like your eyes are more dry. You might feel like your nose, your sinuses are more dry. And Ayurveda is like, all right, we got you, we've got oil. And Ayurveda is all about just like putting oil everywhere. And it's really, really helpful to obviously hydrate our skin. And so this is— it's a great practice to do instead of lotion because there's a lot of funky stuff in most, almost all lotions. And so using oil is really helpful. The other thing is that it can also help to detoxify. So if we use oil on our bodies, we rub our whole body in oil and then we get in the shower. And we kind of, we kind of like rinse off, rinsing off that oil. The oil kind of binds to different toxins that might be on the skin. It binds with some different things. People used to use oil as soap. They didn't use soap, they used oil. Soap can be really dehydrating. Oil is not dehydrating. And so you can use oil and then go, you know, take a shower and that stuff will come off. People, people a lot of times now use oil face wash, right, instead of stripping, drying face wash. And so you can do that with your whole body as well. I usually do that. And then I just, I only, I still use soap, but I only wash like my, my armpits, my, my feet and my genital area, and that's the only part I actually use soap on unless I'm like covered in like actual dirt or something, if I've been like backpacking all weekend or something like that. And then I just use oil the rest of the time. So really, really helpful. So let's get into why— or let's get into, sorry, the how of how to actually do self-massage, because a lot of times people are like, okay, like I'm here, I'm with it, I can get behind it, but like So what do I actually— what do I actually do? It seems like kind of messy, like, or people don't even think about that. And then they go to do it and they're like, oh my God, this was like way more work than I thought it was going to be. So let's just get some, some basics down. Essentially, what you want to do is you want to like, if you're going to do the full oil massage, you want to be naked. And so you want to have an oil with you. Let's get into which oils work for which seasons, which doshas. So vata dosha is— we're in the season of vata. If you have a really big vata imbalance any time of year, this can be helpful. But I like to stick with the seasons just because it's more— it impacts us a lot, like the dryness and that kind of thing impacts us regardless of what dosha we have predominating in our constitution. So it's like vata, it's really dry. If I have a lot of kapha, I'm still going to probably have dry skin this time of year, right? So sesame oil is really great for vata for this time of year. And it can be— you want to get untoasted, unrefined sesame oil. If you get Toasted, you are going to smell like a restaurant. Like, you know, you're gonna smell like toasted sesame oil. And some people really hate that smell. So you don't wanna get toasted. You still— it's still gonna smell a little bit like that, but it won't be as strong. And if you hate that, then you can totally use a different kind of oil. Mm-hmm. which we can get, we can get into. But for, for vata, sesame oil is great. For vata season, sesame oil is great. Other ones that you could use for vata if you don't like the smell of the sesame oil is like almond oil or avocado oil even. And then in the summer, so in the summer, dry brushing is really great. We Touched on that a little bit. It's essentially just rubbing a brush all over your skin, and it helps to get any excess water out of your body, which is like great for when it's really humid outside in the summer. And then you can kind of follow that up with maybe some coconut oil. So my kind of rule of thumb is like, if my coconut oil is like melty, in my house, then I know it's time to use my coconut oil as a self-massage oil, right? It's like, oh, duh, yes, okay, I'm gonna use that. That's a great gauge. Yeah, right? And then once it's like really hard, it's like, okay, not using the coconut oil anymore. And the reason for that is that coconut oil is just— is cooling. And so you want to use an oil that's more warming. Sesame oil is like very warming. And so So it's great for, for vata. So for, for kapha, and if you don't like coconut oil, I mean, I love coconut oil. It smells so good. It smells like you're like on vacation. It does. But you could also use like sunflower oil, which is like, is pretty neutral. And, and then for kapha, Kapha might tend to have more water, like more, yeah, just more water in their bodies, right? The tendency is to retain water. Kapha is the element of water and earth, and so it tends to have more water, especially during the springtime when it's more— when there's like lots and lots of humidity, but it's also a little bit cold and it's also like a lot of rain in the springtime and all of that. And so when that's the case, dry brushing is also like amazing, amazing, amazing. And then you can use a lighter oil and you also probably won't need as much oil as in the winter or during, during vata season in the fall. And so that's going to be more like, like flaxseed oil, safflower oil, even sunflower oil can can be, can be helpful for kapha. And again, you don't need as much oil for that, but it still can be really helpful for kapha because it can help to actually do that detoxification process of like you put the oil on and then you get in the shower and you detoxify in that way. So and then each carrier oil can, can you can like put different essential oils in them to make them smell good and you can make it really fun. I a lot of times, well, I will either buy them from Banyan Botanicals, which they have like a bunch of these just pre-made. They have like a kapha oil, a pitta oil, a vata oil. So that makes it easy. Or I will just— I want to— I always want to make it easy on myself so that I just do it. So I'll just do the normal oil and not really like do a whole lot of prep for it. And not use essential oils. But if you are the kind of person who loves to make little like tinctures and make it really special for yourself, you can totally add those different oils. And make sure you just put those— put the oils in a bottle that is like tinted so it's not clear, because you don't want the oil to go rancid. And you can tell if oil is rancid because it smells bad. So If your oil smells bad, you should probably just toss it.

I love that. So vata, we're thinking avocado, sesame, almond. Make sure that it's untoasted and unrefined sesame. Kapha, you said flaxseed, safflower, and sesame could also be good for that. And then pitta, you were talking about coconut oil, sunflower oil, and then last oil-free might be good for kapha because there is already so much dampness. And so you could do something like dry brushing. And then pitta, you also mentioned doing a little bit of dry brushing if there's like humidity with the heat.

Yes, exactly. Yep. Yeah. And sometimes like during pitta season, especially if it's like early summer and there's a, there's a lot of that humidity, sometimes I, sometimes I go a really long time without doing any self-massage because I'm like, my skin is so hydrated, it's totally fine. I mean, ideally I would, I would do the, the oil so that it detoxifies and everything. But, but yeah, you know, you don't have to be perfect about it at all. And so, yeah, so, so dry brushing is really great for that, for when there is a lot of humidity. You can also— you don't have to use a brush for dry brushing. You can just use your hands. And that is also very, very, very effective, and it helps to bring your relationship with your body a little bit closer even than if you had a dry brush, right? Like, it's like, no, it's your hand. It's like, it's my hand actually touching my body rather than using a tool, which can be helpful if we need that separation for a little bit. But then once you know, then using your hands can be really, really, really powerful. So A couple of things to keep in mind. You want to have like a towel that you do not care about because it will get stained with oil. And it will— it might also like start to smell like rancid oil if you use it for a long time, right? So you want to make sure that you can wash that out, or sometimes you just gotta, you just gotta toss it afterwards. And you want to make sure that after you If you, if you put the oil on after your shower, which there are 2 schools of thought, I don't have a super strong preference either way. If you want to do more detoxification, you put the oil on before the shower and then wash it off during the shower. If you want to do more hydration for your body, so if you want to like, you want it to be oiled up, you want to, if it's like really dry, that you put, you do the oil after the shower. And so I switch it on and off depending for myself. But if you do it after the shower, you're going to want to put clothes on that you don't really care about also. So sometimes it's helpful to just do— to do it at night and then you have like pajamas that you don't really care about or whatever. I will say that sometimes I will— my skin is so like needs the oil so much that it just like absorbs it all and then it's fine. And then like I just don't have any oil on my skin and I can just throw on whatever clothes. The other thing is to make sure that you don't like overdo it. If you do the oil before you hop in the shower, like don't like drench yourself in oil because it can clog your drain if you are like rinsing too much, too much oil off of your body, especially in the winter when it like, when your pipes like freeze and stuff, it can freeze the oil and then clog the drain. So you just want to make sure just to be, to be a little bit mindful of that. I haven't had any issues with that ever, but it's just a thing to keep in mind for sure. Other things to note is Especially in the wintertime or the fall when it's vata season, when it's really dry and cold, it's really helpful to heat up the, the oil. You don't want to be like cold and putting on cold oil. It doesn't feel good at all. And it feels really sticky and really heavy. And so heating it up can be helpful. What I do is just Heat up a little teeny tiny like pot on the stove, like my smallest pot on the stove with a little bit of water. And then I just put the oil that I'm gonna use, like the oil bottle, I just put that in the hot water and let it sit for like a minute. And that, that increases the heat in there, and then it makes it pretty, makes it pretty easy. So I don't want to get too bogged down into the details because I don't want you to be like, this seems like a lot of work. It's It's really, it's really not, especially in the summer when you're using coconut oil because you don't have to heat it up. But, but you can just throw it on the stove for a second, heat it up for probably— it probably will take you less than 5 minutes to heat it up. And then you can just do it when you're in or out, like before you get in the shower or after you get in or after you get out of the shower.

So to get started doing your own therapeutic self- massage at home, you're going to need a few things. One is your oil of choice, which you gave us great guidelines to selecting. And then an essential oil if you desire, not necessary, but if you like to do mixology, you could definitely try that. And then a towel that you can get oily and that you don't mind getting oily. I would add to that is a giant Ziploc bag. When I teach people how to do castor oil packs. I just have them store the Ziploc bag with a towel in the refrigerator to extend the longevity or the lifespan of that. So maybe a Ziploc towel and then having like a pan that you don't mind using to heat up a little bit of water to warm the oil, especially during the cooler time of year. I think that's an additional hack. And then some clothes that you don't mind getting a oily unless you're going to wash it off. Mm-hmm. And then the other thing that you did mention earlier that I do want to circle back to is if you are trying to detoxify as a part of just grounding your body, hydrating your body, loving your body, reconnecting with your body. But if you're trying to break inflammation out of your muscles as a part of your muscle recovery, or you're trying to move blood and lymph and move stagnation, they do advise to start at your extremities, like Hadley said earlier. Yeah. And then work your way to your heart. And so, your heart is in the upper left part of your chest. And so, start at your toes and work your way up your legs, the front of your legs, the back of your legs, the abdomen, the glutes, up into the chest and towards the heart. And the same thing down your fingers. And Hadley, you also described going in a clockwise motion versus counterclockwise. And I always think of clockwise in terms of traditional Chinese medicine can be very building. And so if you're thinking of an acupuncture meridian and you're wanting to, let's say, support your stomach and your digestion, and you Google the stomach acupuncture meridian, they talk about doing massage on those acupressure points in a clockwise way can tonify that meridian, meaning give that stomach meridian, in the example, strength and resilience.

Yeah.

Versus going in a counterclockwise motion can actually calm that down. So if you, for example, are dealing with a ton of anxiety, you might look at the lung meridian or the heart meridian in traditional Chinese medicine and go counterclockwise to calm those down. So that might be something that you can start to explore too, as you're figuring out like, how do you really want to opt optimize your self-therapeutic massage protocol, like bringing in the oils from Ayurveda and maybe throwing in a little bit of deliciousness from your essential oil and aromatherapy, and then considering the meridians from traditional Chinese medicine and really make it this empowering, incredibly therapeutic process.

Yes, totally. Yeah. And, and I will also say, like, a lot of times people are like, well, do you do this every day? Like, how often are you quote unquote supposed to do self-massage? And Ayurveda is like, you know, every day would be awesome. And if you look at all of the things that Ayurveda says to do every day, it's like, okay, I wouldn't be able to do any of the other things in my life if I did all of the things. So So it can be helpful to, you know, to cut out some time during your week. What I do is I do some sort of self-massage each day before or after I get out of the shower, before I get in or after I get out. But it doesn't look like an entire full-body massage that's, you know, like 20 minutes long and like super luxurious. I do that. I usually don't do it that much in the summer, but I do it a lot in the fall and in the winter. I have more time anyway, you know, it's dark at like before 5 o'clock in a lot of the places that I've lived. Um, and so, you know, you can have like a time for— that's a more luxurious one, and then you can have a time that's like a more practical, like, I gotta, you know, I gotta Do this, but it doesn't have to be like a whole thing. We don't have to make all— we don't have to make any of our habits into a whole thing, because then when we do that, we don't do the habits. We— they don't become habit. So make it as easy on yourself as you possibly can. We can talk more about behavior change and habit change and all that kind of stuff later, but, uh, like in another episode. But, um, but make it as easy, easy, easy as possible.

I love that. And again, this is, this is such a brilliant topic, and I'm really glad that we're exploring this today. And we need touch. Our bodies need touch. And so as we're finishing up today, I just want to read a quote from Virginia Satir, and she was a very famous family psychotherapist. Psychologist, and she was talking about in her research that we need 4 hugs a day for survival, 8 hugs a day for maintenance, and 12 hugs a day for growth. And if you're somewhere where you have access to that, that's wonderful. Be mindful, get all the hugs that you can get. But not all of us have that. And so that's when therapeutic self-massage, I think, can really make a huge difference, is that you're Your body needs touch. It needs loving touch. You are worthy of self-love. And starting with self-massage can be really health-improving, life-giving. It could be very healing, mind, body, and spirit. And do it in a way that feels really right and safe for you. And I hope that you can have fun with it. Like Hadlee was saying, is enjoy it, be really playful. And really honor whatever's coming up. And if, again, if you don't have a good trauma-informed clinician, this is a great opportunity to explore that. My favorite resource for that, by the way, is psychologytoday.com. There's a link in there, it says find a therapist, and then when you're searching in those search criteria, put in EMDR, and that's a trauma-informed approach that insurance covers. I think that would be a really great start for you if you're trying to figure out who might be a good therapist for you.

Oh, that's amazing. Yeah. And allow it to be like an experience where if things do come up, which they probably will, honestly, like things, things come up as you're doing this therapeutic self-massage and just look at that as like, oh, thank you, body. Thank you for actually bringing it up to the light. So it's, it's an opportunity to actually inquire about it and dive deep into it, instead of it being like stuck in your subconscious and just controlling you, right? Like, so when you bring it up to the surface, then you can really explore it with a, you know, an appropriate professional. Or, you know, if you don't feel like you need that, you can explore it yourself, or with a friend or whatever it might be. But make sure that it's a, it's the appropriate thing for you.

Oh, that's brilliant. Thank you again for another wonderful conversation.

Yes, absolutely. Before we go, I want to hear from you, Dr. Kane. What do you feel like? You said you wanted to, by the end of the conversation, get to a place where you're like more— you're more into it. How do you feel?

I'm going to make a commitment. I'm going to follow these steps. I'm going to go and I'm going to purchase an oil. And I'm going to get an essential oil that I really love, and I'm going to put it in there, probably because right now it is October and we're recording this. I think I'm going to put in like a little bit of clove, something warm. And then I have a towel that I can get oily, and I'm going to start by giving myself delicious foot massages.

Oh yes, right before bed, putting— doing that and then putting some socks on your feet. Ah yes. That recipe for a remedy for insomnia. It's really, really, really, really good.

And we all need that when we're vata.

Yes. In vata season. Yeah.

As you're listening to this, what is your commitment? So you're finishing this podcast episode. What are you going to do? How are you going to take this information? And so when this conversation ends, don't move on to the next thing, click the next episode, like make a commitment to yourself. What are you gonna do? What's one thing that you can do starting today to self-love, to self-therapeutic massage? It could be rubbing your temples, it could be doing a whole foot rub, it could be a head-to-toe massage, whatever it is, make a commitment to yourself and then let us know how it goes.

Yes. Get to know your body, build that body respect. It doesn't even have to be body love yet. Just build respect. Respect first, and then you'll slowly start to get to the love place.

Awesome. All right, we'll see y'all next time.

Bye everyone!