Inside the mind of a massage therapist
For many of us who have experienced the joys of massage at some point in our lives, there is no doubt that a good session can leave you feeling reinvigorated and rejuvenated. But not all of us are aware of the preventative health qualities that massage can also have on our body and mind.
The Preventative Health Journal spoke recently to Alexandra Cownie, a professional massage therapist who used to work at Nature’s Energy in Glebe, about what made her decide to become a massage therapist and how the practice can really benefit people’s health.
Journey from dancer to massage therapist
Alexandra enjoyed a career as a dancer in France, where she was born and used to live, before being attracted into the massage industry. At her dance school, she was taught about the anatomy of movement and the physiology in the movement, to help them become better dancers.
“We were educated about how the body works to make it operate better and longer, in theory. This involved massaging each other. After dancing for a period in France, I then went on to dance in Vienna and I trained as a professional ballet and contemporary dancer in various dance companies. Sometimes we would massage each other with really heavy Shiatsu type massages. This included applying aromatherapy too. The whole sessions would last one to two hours. It was really interesting to me. I loved it and always felt great afterwards. But when I came to Sydney, I had to stop dancing because I had a bad injury. So I visited to a massage school to receive treatments. It was then that I decided to learn it all properly, so that’s how I started.”
Being a dancer first allowed Bodin to understand the preventative qualities of massage from a personal point of view.
“I could see the benefits that massage had on dancers in regards to preventing them from becoming injured. As a dancer we are always over strained and under a lot of pressure because we put ourselves in awkward positions that are not normal. We would put stress on all the joints and bones for seven to eight hours a day, six or seven days a week, along with performances. So it’s a really huge weight on the body. Being able to have a massage and allow the muscles to relax in between exercising and training makes a huge difference.”
Alexandra studied for three years to become a professional massage therapist. “Massage is like dancing, it has always been there in our society.” she adds. “These days though, there are strict styles, routines and techniques that have evolved throughout the years. I believe that massage was created naturally, since throughout history people have always massaged each other in different ways. Even monkeys do it! It is getting taken more seriously as a health therapy all the time these days. In recent years, health funds have started to cover massage too. People’s views on massage are very advanced in Australia, but in places like France, massage is not considered a therapy. France is very far behind.”
Preventative qualities of massage
In regards to the preventative qualities of massage, Alexandra admits that it cannot help with serious problems, such as cancer, or big illnesses that involve chronic pain.
“But it is great for anybody who does exercise or is stressed at work. It generally helps people to maintain a good level of health physically and mentally. Massage really does offer a lot of mental benefits – more than people think. Through the process of relaxation, we can balance the nervous system, which is very important. People living and working in cities, like in Sydney, are often too stressed and fight the lymphatic system. But massage can help to bring people back to balance and reduce their stress. It helps them to lead a more healthier lifestyle, even if it’s not as obvious as taking a pill or having surgery.
“With a lot of therapies, people go there to get something fixed. For example, with physiotherapy, if you’ve got a broken arm, you see a therapist to get it fixed. Whereas, with massage, we look at the whole body. If your left arm has a problem, maybe it’s because there’s something wrong with the right arm too that’s causing the problem – compensation – in the other arm. We might also find that the hips are imbalanced too and that’s the reason why you are having problems with your arm. That’s were massage is different – by looking at the whole body.”
Alexandra adds that massaging can help with keeping nervous breakdowns at bay too.
“A lot of my clients come from high levels of stress at work. As soon as they have a bit of a heavy day, they come to me. They sometimes say that after having a massage they are able to finish off their week, and they are not sure how they could have completed it otherwise. Nothing changed in their work place. It was just that their state of mind was different, and their levels of energy and approach to it changed. There are a lot of things that are also talked about during massage. You don’t usually just receive the treatment. The actual contact and conversation with a therapist can also make a difference to the patient’s well being.”
Clients that have benefited from massage
She can recount many occasions when her massage service has helped a wide variety of patients.
“One of my clients is a lady who has a big mental disability. She cannot speak much; is a bit less advantaged than the normal person mentally and she cannot understand everything. She also has a lot of physical problems and has experienced many surgeries. She doesn’t have a good balance either, so she falls regularly. Very often, I can’t access any part of her body because she has bruises on her. Her carer used to come in and bring her to me for half an hour every week, for months. When she first started coming, she couldn’t keep her arm more than 25 degrees on one side. She was really blocked in her right shoulder.
“She couldn’t do anything with it and she couldn’t lie on her front too. But she still kept coming back, until one day, she could lift her arm way above her head. It was wonderful! She initially came to see me just because of her shoulder problem. But I found out after a few months that she was also suffering from insomnia. The massage helped her with this too. She was able to sleep for longer chunks of the night thanks to the massage. It also helped to reduce her hypertension, and I began to notice changes in her body too – her posture improved a bit. I could feel these differences in her body after a while through massaging the whole body. It was really amazing that I had helped not only her shoulder problem but everything else too. After a while, she ended up sleeping on the table during massage too.”
Alexandra says that she experiences a huge sense of reward when she is able to work on people regularly over a long period because you get to see the results. She says that with one off massages do not give her the chance to really work out the problem.
Massage sceptics
For some reason, many people still do not take massage that seriously, which frustrates Alexandra.
“They just come in and say: ‘I want a massage, I want to be relaxed.’ So I reply: ‘Yes, but I need to know your problems.’ A lot of people don’t realise how much we study about the anatomy and pathology. They should see our books! Maybe because the acceptance of massage by health funds is so recent, some people still think it’s just about having a back rub, rather than having a treatment. Sometimes clients see and realise after a while that we know what we are talking about, and even if we can’t heal somebody, we can really give them the chance to get better and prevent themselves from hurting again. To all the sceptics out there, I’d say: ‘Come and try it. If we don’t try we’ll never know. If they are happy they will come back. If not, no problem. It’s like trying new food’.”
These days, Alexandra knows different parts of the body so well, she is able to tell what’s wrong with a person simply by placing her hands on different pats of the person’s body. Instinct kicks in straight away.
Different kinds of massages
Many people may wonder why there are so many different names for massages. Are they all different?
“A basic massage is usually called a remedial, Swedish or sports massage. When you study massage, you can elect to take on specialities. For instance, I studied reflexology, Chinese massage and aromatherapy. In almost every massage I do now as a professional, I incorporate a little bit of all those specialities For example, I will include aromatherapy into a massage if somebody needs to be relaxed. I know what each oil does. I’ll use reflexology if somebody has back pain or a headache, so I’ll pick the areas of the foot that need to be massaged to make them feel better. They won’t know what I’m doing it either. If somebody has low energy, then I’ll work on the acupuncture points. I’ve learnt how to treat people with my fingers instead of having to use needles. So I try my hardest to provide a complete treatment. I think the more we mix it up the better it is for the person having the massage, but the basic is remedial massage.”
Alexandra says that some of the problems that massage can help prevent from getting worse include mild sporting injuries, recurrent headaches, cramping, digestive problems, low energy levels, stress back pain (if there’s not a spine misalignment), cramping and it can also help to prevent nervous breakdowns (to a certain extent).
“It can also help with Fibromyalgia, which is a disease that women mainly suffer from. It involves chronic fatigue and chronic everything really. It brings pains to between 12-16 points of the body. It’s really intense and women are usually petrified and are very hard to touch. But they feel a lot better after a massage.”
You can clearly see the joy that Bodin experiences from making people feel better when she conducts a massage. She puts a 100% effort into making sure she can really get to the root of the problem, treat it and prevent it from coming back again. She even carries out a detailed questionnaire with each client to make sure she can really understand what the issues are and how they can be treated. Not only that, but the atmosphere she creates in her massage room is very peaceful and relaxing, filled with soothing smells, colours and music. Although she loved being a dancer, it seems that she has found a profession that offers even more reward through the practice of massage.
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