Deep healing at your fingertips

Have you ever noticed how much touch - self touch- there is in a yoga practice? It’s not the most obvious thing but almost every other cue involves a reference to touch e.g. ‘interlace your fingers’; ‘let your hands rest on your abdomen’; ‘cradle your head in your hands’. So many yoga poses draw us towards touch. Yoga, according to Dr Tiffany Field - director of the Touch Research Institute at the University of Miami School of Medicine - can be seen as a form of self - massage. 

Touch is one of the first modalities we develop as babies in our mothers’ wombs. It is our very first connection to the world. ‘The primary sense organs of touch and movement are located throughout the body - in every cell. Touch is emphasised in the skin.’ (Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen). When we are touched, or when we touch something or someone, we stimulate pressure receptors under the skin that send signals to the brain which in turn responds by undergoing a series of physiological reactions. 

The infamous vagus nerve - the tenth cranial nerve that wanders from the brainstem to the colon- which is responsible for controlling the body’s parasympathetic nervous system is also activated with touch. Giving and receiving pleasant touch reduces the cardiovascular stress response (lowers heart rate, blood pressure and the stress hormone cortisol) and triggers the brain’s release of oxytocin (aka the love hormone).

Touch is immensely powerful. A potent analgesic that can soothe our nervous system; improve our immunity; and help us feel more secure, safe and less alone. So next time you practice, start by finding a comfortable seat or lie on your back with feet flat on the ground and try resting one hand on the heart and the other on your belly and sense that you are with yourself. Let the touch itself communicate appreciation and gentleness - this is what I call ‘deep healing at your fingertips’. Hold yourself like this until you feel a sense of presence, groundedness, before you begin flowing into gentle movement.  Finish your practice by giving yourself the most nourishing of hugs. You totally deserve it.

‘Movement and touch develop simultaneously. Touch is the other side of movement. Movement is the other side of touch. They are the shadow of each other.’ - Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen