I can't remember where I heard about Shirodhara but I always knew it would be the perfect treatment for me. It involves the pouring of warm oil, continuously over the forehead in one steady stream for an hour. If anything was going to relax this part of me, I figured this was it! The oil used is generally blended specifically for your dosha and released from a vessel suspended above the table.
Doshas, for those that are not familiar, are central to Ayurvedic medicine. There are 3 - Vatta, Pitta and Kapha and it is believed that health exists when there is a balance between all 3. Every one of us has our own unique dosha depending on our body types, personality and many other factors. Generally you have a combination of all 3 with more emphasis on 1 particular dosha, that is your primary. There may only be 3 doshas but there are many, many combinations to be had.
I found a local Ayurvedic Health Clinic in Chiang Mai and used their on-line dosha test that determined I was primarily "Pitta". You can take it yourself here or visit this page to learn more about Ayurveda in general. I knew they did Shirodhara and decided to try out their "Pitta" package that consisted of Abyhanga, Shirodhara and an Oxygen steam bath. I found a block of time on the weekend that I could go and emailed them right away. There was a little bit of confusion when I received the booking as they had signed me up for something very different. I was confirmed for a Colonic irrigation, Ion foot cleanse and something else that I was not interested in trying. I have always wanted to try a colonic but haven't quite worked up the courage to and have already done an ion foot cleanse in the past. I also wanted this specific oil treatment, so I emailed them back and they changed my treatment bookings.
I hadn't actually heard of this before, but how could you turn it down! Dosha-specific oils are used by two therapists who massage your entire body in unison to activate and gently awaken the entire body. "Abhi" means "into or towards" and "Ang" has a root meaning in "movement". So essentially this treatment aims to move energy into the body while moving toxins towards the body's elimination systems. It both calms and activates the nervous system.
I was given disposable underwear (this gets messy!) and taken to a treatment room to lie down. One therapist started massaging my head and once she was finished and had moved down to my arm, the other joined in and they began this dance like massage. It is very important in a treatment like this for the massage therapists to move exactly the same way, with similar pressure and technique, otherwise it can be very distracting and disorientating. They were pretty much dead on and I quickly felt my body letting go, safely in their arms. The oil they used was warm and felt lovely being poured on my skin and moved around. I was naked except for my underwear and one of the first techniques they did was to push the energy from my navel, up and out through my chest to my arms. Four hands moving from my abdomen, up the middle of my breasts/sterum and out to my arms and down to my hands in one fluid motion, repeatedly. Amazing. I don't think I can even describe everything what happened next because I was already drifting far, far away.
And now for the treatment I have been waiting for! I was already relaxed but thrilled to be finally doing this. They escorted me to another room where a giant wooden structure was set up over a treatment table. In the middle of it was a long metal rod that held a copper vessel (beautiful by the way) on a heavy rope. All these years I had no idea how they set this up and it was fascinating to see in person. I was placed underneath with a towel rolled under my head in such as way that made my head tilt slightly back, so the oil would fall back towards my hair. There was a sort of trough for catching the excess oil at the back of the table so it wouldn't go all over the place.
The primary reason for Shirodhara is for a deep quieting of the mind and is intended to induce relaxation of the nervous system and calm any disturbing emotions. It is thought to heal the body at the root level of disease. I can believe this, from my own personal experiences and from massaging so many different people. Our emotions, thoughts and mental stresses have a massive influence on our physical body, causing disturbances to all of the major systems. I have felt it first hand, when my hands start to tighten at the first thought of stress, or my stomach becomes nauseous when faced with a difficult situation. We have all felt the rise of blood pressure, or temperature in our body when we are angry, or embarrassed or extremely upset. I think it is ignorant to think that the mind and emotions have no influence on our physical body as western medicine seems to believe. In most other cultures, including Thai, they believe that to balance the body and heal it you must balance the body, mind and soul.
Long term stress I believe is the root of many diseases. Our bodies are just not equipped to deal with the types of stresses that we see as "part of life" on such an on-going basis. I may not have lived for very long in this world but I can see that we are going downhill and fast, at least in Toronto and the western world. So many people work too many hours, putting far too much on their plate, have too much to think and worry about and rarely slow down and simply relax. From the number of people I've had on my table I can tell you that we, as a society, have forgotten how to let go. Including myself. It may be hard to believe but I have a hard time bringing myself to a state of peace. My mind goes a million miles a minute, stress is always just under the surface waiting to drag me under. I worry about more then I should, take on more then I have to and physically wear myself down to the bone. It's not healthy and I know better! Yet still, even when I'm receiving a treatment myself, I find myself unable to truly and fully "let go".
I wish we could all just slow down and give ourselves time and permission to simply be. To let go of all of the worries and stresses of everyday life. Most of us don't even know that we are carrying around stress because it is so small, so regular and such a part of us that it feels "normal". Stress doesn't have to be huge. It doesn't have to involve losing a job, a loved one, getting into a major argument. It could be having the weight of your mortgage at the back of your head, thinking about the things you need to do tomorrow instead of enjoying the moment of today. Stress is everywhere and it is dragging us down, more and more into a dark abyss. This is one of the reasons why our clinic is "The little clinic that feels like a spa." because your treatment doesn't stop at just your muscles and joints. Even if you are coming in only for an injury, it is therapeutic for you to also relax and let go and creating a calm and nurturing environment is part of what we do for you at Swansea Massage Clinic. If you can let go and relax, letting go of your "fight or flight" instinct and instead flipping over to your "rest and digest" instinct, your body is more able to heal. Any RMT can tell you it is much easier to treat someone who is relaxed then someone who is tense and there are several biological processes that back this up as well.
I could talk about this forever and I will come back to this topic one day. For now, you probably want to hear about how my treatment went and if it worked. And yes, oh my god, yes, it did. I felt like this hour treatment wiped away years of stress from my entire body. It was like a week on the beach condensed into one tiny hour. It was better then I ever thought it could be and I left in a glow, more relaxed then I have been in a long, long time. Longer then I can remember. Unfortunately it didn't last long, stresses from back home built the tension back in me quickly, but I held on to it for as long as I possibly could.
It felt like being put into a trance, into a deep meditative state. There is no talking, no music, no interruption. The warm oil flows smoothly from one side of your head to the other like being hypnotized by the swing of a pendulum. I believe the therapist was sitting at the head of the table controlling the movement herself, but it was hard to tell because I was out of it so quickly. Sometimes the oil poured straight down from my forehead to the back of my head but most of the time it was left and right, back and forth, slowly and methodically sending me into a deeper and deeper state of relaxation. I fell asleep and I am told I was snoring which is saying something - I hardly ever fall asleep during treatments anymore because my mind is always thinking, thinking, thinking.
I finished my treatment with a steam bath filled with oxygen. Basically its a wooden cabinet that you sit in, are zipped up into and then closed in but with your head sticking out. For this treatment there was also an oxygen tank and a tube sticking in filling the box with fresh oxygen. I love heat and steam so enjoyed this, especially after being so relaxed. I would have agreed to pretty much anything at this point!
Oxygen has been used as part of therapy for a long, long time, primarily because it is believed that a lack of cellular oxygen leads to poor health. This treatment is beneficial for a wide range of conditions, specifically rheumatoid and inflammatory, like arthritis, fibromyaliga and physical injuries. It is also highly anti-bacterial, anti-viral and stimulating for the entire system.
By the end of this I was smoking hot and happy to sip on cool water and step into the shower to try and rinse off at least some of the oil from my treatments (my body was dripping with it!). I cleaned myself up, put myself together and was walking out when I heard and saw one of my classmates sitting in the lobby having an ion foot cleanse, talking about how she was going to "bring her friends here". So I said, "like me?" and we laughed at such a strange coincidence that in a big city like Chiang Mai here we were at the same time, in the same clinic. She immediately asked "What did you just have??" because apparently I was just glowing and she wanted to have some of what I was feeling at the moment! I recommended it highly, we sat and discussed the various treatments she had been having and that I had had that day and then I went on my way, meandering through the city in a dream-like state, already thinking about when my next Shirodhara would be.
Ayurvedic Health Centre - Chiang Mai
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