Hello beautiful souls. I am Yasuko and it’s time for Massage Monday. This week, let’s give ourselves a head spa. There is no one way to massage your head. This is how I like to massage my head and do a self head spa with a nice scalp massage. There is no one way to massage your head. This is how I like to massage my head. You are welcome to follow along.
But first, let’s go over some benefits of scalp massage.
Benefits of scalp massage #1. It makes it flexible. Let’s feel the scalp. Ideally, your scalp is flexible enough that you are able to pinch it and move it. Flexible scalp means you have better circulation. In general, you have more blood in muscles and less circulation in tendon. The top of your head is covered with tendon, so you don’t have that much circulation to begin with. Blood is what delivers nutrients to your hair roots so it’s important to keep your scalp flexible for better circulation.
Benefits of scalp massage #2. Trigger Points. As you can see, there are no muscles on the top of your head but there are muscles in the front, sides, and in the back. These muscles can have trigger points.
Trigger points can be the culprit of headaches in different parts of your head. Trigger Points are denoted by X and their referred pain areas are denoted by the shaded areas in the corresponding color.
For example, if you have a headache in the back in this blue shaded area, or if you have pain in top part of your eye, see if you can find a tight sore spot in the muscles in the back of your head where you see X. When you find the trigger point, go over it with your finger slowly 10 times at a time.
Benefits of scalp massage #3. Facelift! if you have tight head muscles, they can sag onto your face from different angles. And you definitely do not want that.
By keeping your head muscles flexible, you have less chance of them weighing on your face from different angles.
Benefits of scalp massage #4. Stimulating acupressure points. There are acupressure points on your head too and you will be stimulating them.
A very good one is on the very top of your head. It is called Governing Vessel 20 or GV 20. This point is good for headache, shoulder pain, eye strain, calming down your stress, improving your sleep and insomnia.
Draw lines from the top of your ears and it’s where they meets on the top. It’s in a slight depression and when you press it, you will know because it has a distinct feeling. Press and hold for one minute as you take deep breaths.
Let’s glide your fingers slowly from the front all the way to the back. Notice when you hit sore spots as you glide your fingers. Do it several times covering different parts of your head.
Next, glide your fingers and when you feel tight spots, stop and move the scalp in circles with your fingers 10 times. Then glide your fingers and stop on the next tight spot, and move the scalp in circles 10 times, and repeat. If you have a bunch of tight spots like me, you’ll be making frequent stops.
These tight spots are there for reasons. When you come across them, thank for their hard work. I say “Arigato” which means thank you in Japanese because I know my head is working very hard even if it doesn’t look that way to some people..
According to a Japanese head spa therapist, when the side of your head is sore, it may be a reflection of nervous fatigue and emotional fatigue. When you have persistent stress and nervous tension, or if you clench or grind your teeth at night, it tends to show on the sides of your head.
When the top of your head is sore, it may reflect your stress from irritation. When you use your brain a lot for work or think too much about something, the top of your head may get hard.
If you find the back of your head is sore, it may be reflecting eye fatigue. I like to grab my head and use hooked thumbs to circle the base of the skull. There are suboccipital muscle group in the back of the head and deep inside the head. These muscles are linked to eye position neurologically and move your head according to your eye movement. A bad posture from say working on the computer for a long time can contribute to the pain in the back of your head too.
Here are some other ways I massage my head with. One is to weave your fingers and use the heels of the palm to massage different spots on the top, and different spots in the back.
And using the flat part of the fist on the sides and the back.
I hope your head is happier and so are you.
Massage Monday #667 Head Spa with Self Scalp Massage http://bit.ly/mm-667