What will a treatment involve?
You will find it extremely gentle, subtle and relaxing. No force is used or needed, and no adjustment of hard tissue. A treatment usually lasts up to one hour, where sequences of precise moves are performed, with short periods of rest between, to allow your body time to initiate healing responses. It can be applied through light clothing if you prefer. You may experience immediate pain relief, although improvement is just as likely to unfold over the next week.
Who can benefit?
Bowen can benefit people of all ages, including pregnant woman, newborn and infant children. Although it is a tool for treating ailments and injuries, many healthy people come along to enjoy treatments to maintain balance and their sense of well-being.
Victims of sports injuries and accidents have found the Bowen Technique very helpful as a remedial therapy during their recovery. It improves rehabilitation time regardless of when the injury was sustained.
Common presentations:
Sport injuries
Back Pain/Sciatica
Tennis & Golfers elbow
Carpal Tunnel/RSI
Ankle, Knee & Hip problems
Asthma & Sinus problems
Allergies, Hay fever
Headaches & Migraines
Stress & Blood Pressure
Chronic fatigue & Fibromalgia
Anxiety & Depression
Menstrual/Hormonal problems
IBS and many other conditions
The Bowen technique is also a great way to manage stress, maintain flexibility, and keep you moving.
How does the Bowen technique work?
A Bowen treatment addresses fascia tissue as well as the muscles and skeleton. Fascia is the sheet of connective tissue that covers the structures of the body – allowing flexibility and movement between various parts of the body.
It is fascia that is responsible for your posture – so in Bowen we pay it a lot of attention. It affects the way we hold our spine. By changing the way the muscles and fascia work together, we can change the way the structure works – forcing your spine to adopt a better, less painful, position for example. This approach often results in a much longer-lasting effect on body alignment than some manipulative therapies.
Pathways to the Brain
As the muscle is held, prior to the move being made, it is gently stretched, sending sensory information to the brain. There are thousands of these stretch receptors and thousands of times a second they repeatedly send this information to the brain about the status of the muscle that is being treated. The brain sends corrective information back to the individual muscles.
Bowen moves are carried out in short sequences at key structural points with a gap of a couple of minutes between each sequence. The client is left to relax in a comfortable, warm atmosphere. It is a quiet time, with little talking, except for the client to feedback to the therapist about any sensations they may be experiencing.
A Bowen treatment is a simple and powerful way of relieving pain which consists of a series of gentle moves on the client’s body with the client usually lying on a bed or comfortable treatment couch (or sitting if this is not possible) The therapist uses her fingers and thumbs to make a series of precise, rolling type moves over muscle.