So you’ve floated off the table (both feet at the same time mind!), you’ve walked around a bit and feel AMAZING, or at least better than when you got on. Now what?
As with any other physical therapy, post treatment rules apply:
- Be kind to yourself
- Drink water
- Avoid hard graft for a couple of days
- Book in for a follow up treatment
For the readers out there, here’s more detail;
Be kind to yourself
This means pretty much as it reads, treat yourself as you would a small child, or a puppy, or a kitten. Say nice words to yourself, this is incredibly healing. You may feel a bit weird, in which case, feel free to say the words in your head. For example, if you find your car keys in the fridge, instead of calling yourself an idiot (you know you’ve done it), say some thing like – hmmm looks like I needed that Bowen session more than I realised – this helps the body to feel at ease, relaxed and therefore benefit greater from the treatment.
Being kind to yourself also means, watching something that makes you smile, or even better, laugh. Stay off the FB comments that rile you up! Take a nice bath (no too hot) and get an early night.
Drink water – aka re-hydrate
Now, before you roll your eyes…..stop it.
When we stretch the fascia with each Bowen move, we are allowing fluid to flow deeper into and through the tissue, as well as expelling toxins. Therefore to increase that luscious hydrated feeling of suppleness and flexibility and to decrease symptoms of detoxification (i.e. headache, stiffness, muscle fatigue), it’s a good idea to sip water regularly.
Avoid hard graft
Simply put, you will undo the Bowen Therapy treatment by doing too much in the following days. To be successful in this step, it may take a little forward planning, such as booking your treatment during a rest period (for the athletes out there) or the weekend after your suburbs green bulk waste collection.
Book your follow up treatment
After your very first Bowen treatment, we highly recommend re-booking in the following 7 to 10 days. This is because your body is in a place of bliss right now and you are enjoying this good feeling, once you return to your normal day, there may be activities or habits that begin to mould your body back into the shape we’ve just released it from (I’m blaming computers here), or stresses may begin to stiffen up your poor trapezius (lower neck) muscle, mainly because there are habitual positions and feeling for the body and it only takes a week or two for us to return to the habits that we call ‘normal’.
By returning after a week, we are ‘reminding’ the body what actual ‘normal’ feels like and therefore extending the good feeling for longer.
And the longer we can feel good for, the greater probability we have of retraining our body to avoid those stressors or creating new habits.
Extra advise
There are a more recommendations we make, some of them are obvious, some happen naturally and other are just not likely to happen unless you’re a hardcore self carer 😉
- Move gently often – to ensure suppleness and hydration, it’s a good idea to move around every 20 minutes or so, a gentle walk or stretching is perfect, but if you go for a nap and stay there for a few hours, there’s no harm done.
- No baths or heat treatments- here’s my major contradiction, especially f you’ve been reading above. I love a nice warm bath with epsom salts, just make sure that it’s not too hot. This will raise your body temperature, making it work too hard to cool down, dehyrdate you through sweating and have a negative effect on your cardiovascular system. To be safe, luke warm shower.
- Stay clam and relaxed – this should be a rule of life but is particularly valid after your Bowen Therapy treatment. The main reason is because stress will have reverse effect on your physical, mental and energetic systems. All that feel good, gone!
- Keep your wallet out of your back pocket – or swap shoulders with your handbag. These daily habits tilt the pelvis and assist misalignment.
- Place both feet evenly on the ground – for a similar reason as above, try to practice this when getting out of bed, out of the car and off the sofa.
