How is a biodynamic craniosacral therapy treatment?
Be ready for the best therapy to reduce stress, manage pain & help reduce illness
During a Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy treatment session the client typically lies or sits on a treatment table fully clothed. The practitioner will use a very light touch to “listen” to the body’s intrinsic movements.
The practitioner will often begin the session by placing their hands lightly on the client’s feet. From here the subtle movements and patterns of restrictions and ease may be felt. The practitioner may then move to other areas of the body, often to the sacrum at the base of the spine or to the shoulders or head. In “biodynamic” work the practitioner does not manipulate or adjust bones or tissue.
Throughout the session the client may feel a range of sensations such as tingling, buzzing, feelings of hot or cold. Sometimes the client may feel small movements or adjustments taking place, or sometimes, the client may feel nothing. Often a client will experience a deep sense of calm and relaxation or may sleep deeply. Any or all of the above is normal and welcomed as part of the healing process.
BCST and Pain Relief
Living with chronic or acute pain can be debilitating! It causes high levels of stress and significant changes in your mood and daily life activities. Treatment like anti-inflammatory medications and painkillers, appropriate exercises and applying heat or cold may often ease the pain.
Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy (BCST) is an option worth considering if you suffer from such pain and stress.
Only recently has research begun to uncover what makes Craniosacral Therapy (CST) effective. As a result, when someone is referred to me, they generally have no idea what to expect from a session and whether Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy can really help them.
Pain generally causes a couple of things to happen in the body
First, it leads to muscle tension. Muscle tension causes compression of nerves and blood vessels, which decreases blood flow. Decreased blood flow means impaired waste removal from the body as well as limited absorption of nutrients and oxygen into the body.
Muscles shorten to accommodate for the decreased blood flow, movement becomes restricted, and the body enters into a general state of irritation and overall low- to high-grade stress, as well as activation of the fight-or-flight part of the nervous system, which is called the sympathetic nervous system (SNS).
On top of this, often pain causes some kind of structural compensation pattern.
Those in pain will change how they walk, sit, sleep, stand, etc. in order to alleviate or try to diminish the pain level they feel. Short term there may be some pain relief, but long term the pain often becomes worse due to a combination of exhaustion, stress, and misalignment.
Sound familiar?
The thing to understand here is that pain is a request for attention from the body. It’s the body raising a red flag and saying:
PLEASE PAY ATTENTION TO ME!!! (Is what Somatics means). That request often boils down to the body needing three things
- Time
- Rest
- The sympathetic nervous system turned off and the parasympathetic nervous system turned on.
Point 1 and point 2 are fundamental to sustained body health. To use the car metaphor, your car will stop in the middle of the road if you don’t fill up your gas tank and will be more prone to malfunction if you don’t do maintenance on it after a certain number of miles. Similar to a car, but far more complex, the body will malfunction or stop working if it’s not maintained or well resourced.
Point 3 is the most basic explanation of how biodynamic craniosacral therapy works.
In Western scientific terms, biodynamic craniosacral therapy is thought to ease pain by deactivating the sympathetic nervous system and activating the parasympathetic nervous system, which is also known as the rest-and-digest branch of the autonomic nervous system or the counterpart to the sympathetic nervous system.
The deactivation of the sympathetic nervous system and the increase in vagal tone, which illustrates the functional state of the parasympathetic nervous system, can lead to the decompression of muscles and other body tissues, the dilation of blood vessels increasing blood flow, and the induction of the body into a general state of rest for the length of a session.
Sometimes clients report an increase in pain initially as blood flow and nerve electrical conduction increase through tissue decompression. After this spike, the pain condition may improve considerably, getting incrementally better per treatment.
Biodynamic craniosacral therapy may benefit conditions associated with chronic or acute pain. Some people who have used BCST as part of their therapy regime have reported a more rapid remission from pain symptoms, and in some cases have avoided any further interventions.
How can I help with Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy?
Head Injury & Concussion
Often result in both physical & cognitive disabilities, which can be addressed with craniosacral treatments. Ignoring them will only add to more pain & confusion.
Best therapy for concussion : 5 reason
Be ready for the best therapy to reduce stress, manage pain & symptoms of trauma.
5 Reasons to Receive Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy for Head Injury or Concussion:
- There is not much a doctor can do to help with for recovery of such an incident. You are left alone to deal with the symptoms.
- The sooner the circulation improves to the brain, the better.
- This is a great way to deal with the physical trauma, on a deep neurological level.
- Our brain governs all body functions, when it is traumatized, it builds protective barriers, so it is best to deal with these underlaying natural forces, before they become too patterned.
- This treatments allow the body to self regulate and heal itself in a safe and effective manner.
What is a concussion?
A concussion occurs when the brain is bruised, causing blood to pool in an area, which causes swelling: The brain is critical to everything that goes on to the body & can be serious. The symptoms can vary, from headaches, sensitive to light & sound, visual disturbance, confusion, nausea, drowsiness, amnesia, difficulty concentrating, feeling like you are in a fog or feeling irritable & upset. Usually these symptoms are delayed if not treated.
What you can do to help?
After seeing your doctor and examination, it is vital that you REST, REST, REST! Eliminate all stimulants: No phones, computers, tv, music & bright lights..
This is crutial for the brain to heal. Also a very healthy diet of no added sugar & lots of healthy fats will help the brain to heal.
The History of biodynamic craniosacral therapy?
Be ready for the best therapy to reduce stress, manage pain & help reduce illness.
Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy (BCST) is fairly new to Canada, but is being taught around the world based on the medical doctor and surgeon, Osteopathic Dr. Andrew Still. This American doctor started the very first osteopathic medical school in 1892 in Kirksville, Missouri. He understood that the human body is composed of many parts and were all intimately related as a functional whole. He then proved he could restore health by treating the body with his hands, naming it “Osteopathy”. Osteo meaning “bones” and Pathy meaning “feeling” or “suffering”.
In this Osteopathic school was a brilliant student, Dr. William Sutherland, who, in his final year of Osteopathic medicine in 1898, discovered and proved the cranial bones (head bones) were able to move and not be totally fused, as once believed.
After much research, he discovered that these cranial bones had a very specific respiratory motion like gills of a fish and explored the involuntary system of “breathing” in tissues and soon understood its significance to optical health and its relationship to the rest of the human body and mind. He concluded that this respiratory motion is produced by the body’s inherent life-force, which he referred to as the “Breath of Life” and when this Breath of Life was available and functioned together in harmonious motion throughout the body, then there was life-force.
He studied this for years and came up with the concept and envisioned a totally new medical system of Craniosacral Therapy. Since then, Dr. William Sutherland has had many followers and research doctors studying with him and after him, some of them you may of heard of, such as Dr. Kern, Dr. Shea, Dr. Sill and Dr. Upledger. Its because of these founders and their studies and achievements that we today know and can prove that health is an active principle: it is a living, breathing reality that can be felt by knowledgable hands.