Touch : Awakening Our Relations

Touch (v) 1290 (implied in touching) from O. Fr. { Old French}, touchier ' to touch', to hit, knock;  Sp. {Spanish}  tocar, It. {Italian} toccare - Oxford English Dictionary

How many times does one find an ache in the body and begin to rub or massage this area without thinking? This is a natural response. Healing touch and massage are known to have been around for thousands of years and within many cultures throughout the world. The nature of touch has a powerful effect how we relate to ourselves and our relations around us.

From 1300 BCE to 500 CE, known throughout the hellenic world, were healing santuaries called Asclepions, named after the Greek god, Asclepius, the god of healing. These were centers where people would pilgrimage to in times of illness or perhaps when physicians were unable to assist. There were therapists that offered different types of bodywork, hydrotherapy, psychotherapy, changes in diets, among several other modalities, to touch and initiate the approach of healing.

Even further back, in the ancient East, massage has been documented in China as early as 3000 BC, expressed through manual and energetic techniques that eventually spread to Japan. There are differing components of massage according to each culture's relations but some are shared; one being that traditionally China and Japan employed the blind as their massage therapists. Perhaps brought from China to India, massage was integrated into the Hindu traditions, a part of what is known as Ayurveda, 'the science of life'.

In our modern times, there are more and more scientific studies that verify massage as beneficial in many conditions of our western lives. Dr. Tiffany Field of the Touch Research Institute of Miami, showed that pre-mature babies, given gentle strokes and limb manipulations, gained 47% more weight than infants who did not receive therapeutic touch. They (preemies) became more socially responsive and were discharged from the hospitals an average of 6 days earlier. Eight months later, pre-term infants who had received massge as newborns showed greater weight gain and more optimal cognitive and motor development.

 Massage creates a relationship to the mind and the body. Neuroscientist and pschophamacologist, Candice Pert,Ph.D, brought us the understanding of neuropeptides (nerve proteins), that develop at the instance of a thought. These chemical messengers travel throughout the body from the brain in the blood, extracellular spaces and the cerebrospinal fluid. This shows that a physiological change can occur with what we think.

One can only imagine that therapeutic touch has existed well beyond the times of written recordings. Awakening the relationship to ourselves through massage and bodywork can create a change in how we view ourselves and how we view the world. This a step towards re-establishing our connections to our health,  heart and mind.