Massage Therapy

Massage therapy is the use of skilled hands to treat the body’s soft tissues to produce a therapeutic response. Soft tissue includes muscle, skin and connective tissue, tendons and ligaments.

CranioSacral Therapy

CranioSacral Therapy (CST) is a light-touch approach that can create dramatic improvements in your life. It releases tensions deep in the body to relieve pain and dysfunction and improve whole-body health and performance.

Few body structures have more influence over your health and well-being than your central nervous system. And few body systems have more impact on your central nervous system than the craniosacral system – the soft tissues and fluid that protect your brain and spinal cord.

What is CranioSacral Therapy?

The craniosacral system extends from the skull or the cranium down to the tailbone or sacrum. CranioSacral Therapy was developed by Dr. John E. Upledger, an osteophatic physician featured in TIME magazine as one of America’s next wave of innovators.

From 1975 to 1983, Dr. Upledger was a professor of biomechanics at the College of Osteopathic Medicine at Michigan State University.

While he was there he led a team of anatomists, physiologists, biophysicists and bioengineers who performed and published the clinical research that formed the basis for the approach he named CranioSacral Therapy.

In 1985, Dr. Upledger founded The Upledger Institute to teach people worldwide about the value of this effective approach.

Why is CranioSacral Therapy so Important?

Every day you endure stresses and strains and your body absorbs them. But your body can only handle so much tension before the tissues begin to tighten and potentially affect the brain and spinal cord.

Unfortunately, this can compromise the function of the central nervous system – and the performance of nearly every other system in your body.

CranioSacral Therapy releases those tensions to allow the entire body to relax and self-correct. Using a gentle touch – starting with about the weight of a nickel – practitioners evaluate your internal environment. Then they use distinctive light-touch techniques to release any restrictions they find.

By freeing the central nervous system to perform at its best, CranioSacral Therapy naturally eliminates pain and stress, stengthens your resistance to disease, and enhances your health and well-being.

And because it’s so gentle, CranioSacral Therapy can be effective for all ages, from newborns to elders.

What Conditions Does CST Address?

CranioSacral Therapy improves your body’s ability to take better care of you. It helps relieve a full spectrum of pain, illness and dysfunction, including

• Migranes and Headaches
• Chronic Neck and Back Pain
• Stress and Tension-Related Disorders
• Motor-Coordination Impairments
• Infant and Childhood Disorders
• Brain and Spinal Cord Injuries
• Chronic Fatigue
• Fibromyalgia
• TMJ Syndrome
• Scoliosis
• Central Nervous System Disorders
• Learning Disabilities
• ADD/ADHD
• Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
• Orthopedic Problems
• And Many Other Conditions

What Can I Expect From a Session?

A typical CranioSacral Therapy session takes place in a quiet, private setting. You remain fully clothed as you relax on a comfortable, padded table.

Your therapist begins by gently touching various parts of your body to monitor the rhythm of the fluid that is flowing around your central nervous system.

By carefully listening with the hands to locate areas of weak fluid flow or tissue motion, your practitioner can trace those areas of weakness through the body to the original source of dysfunction.

Delicate manual techniques are then used to release those problem areas and improve the form and function of your central nervous system.

A CranioSacral Therapy session can last up to an hour or more. It can be used alone or integrated with other therapies to create powerful effects.

What you experience from your own session is highly individual. The sessions are generall deeply relaxing, creating feelings of warmth or gentle pulsing in the areas the therapist is working on.