Brandon Jellison of Lavender Farm Wellness explains the benefits of bodywork and massage.
How does massage and bodywork help relieve pain?
Massage therapy and specialized bodywork modalities help take the weight of the world off our shoulders to relieve physical and mental pain. Our body is designed to heal itself given the right conditions. Our body will continuously try to create movement patterns to compensate for the stressors in our lives, but all too frequently these patterns result in more pain.
How do you and your practitioners approach massage?
When people come in for massage therapy, we work with the body to support and relieve the pain and the patterns that cause the initial pain. This process of relieving pain patterns goes hand in hand with improving posture by releasing pressure on the joints and nerves, which then allows a full, healthy breath to resume naturally. The functional approach to improving posture and breathing creates the conditions that allow people to maintain peak performance and stay injury-free. With less pain and stress, you’ll naturally engage in a more positive way toward yourself and the people around you. The effects on someone’s moment-to-moment quality of life is nothing short of profound. We’re not just offering great massage therapy; we’re your allies in health.
What unexpected benefits can bodywork provide one’s overall wellness?
Fact: Our sense of touch, like all of our senses, can only be experienced in the present moment—never the past or the future. During the course of a massage, our mindfulness is being strengthened because we are feeling our body, which continuously brings us back to the here and now. This experience directly strengthens our capacity for mindfulness by continuously pulling our attention back to the present moment and has a healing effect on our mind-body connection and overall wellness.
Beyond the physical relief, how does massage treat one’s mental health?
I call it the happy elevator theory on our personal energy. We have all had the experience of being in an elevator with someone who is very unhappy. After stepping out we notice that we picked up a bit of that person’s unhappy vibe. The reverse is also true. If we are stuck in an elevator with someone who feels great, that feeling is also contagious and stays with us after we step off the elevator. Everything we do at Lavender Farm Wellness is to help people shake off their physical pain and stress so that their natural joyousness can shine. These joyous people then go into elevators, their family homes and workplaces and have a positive effect on the people around them. As the Buddha says, “The happiness of others is indeed your own happiness.”
Can you give us a sense of the spectrum of massage and bodywork treatments available?
Our team excels at offering a variety of massage therapy services under the umbrella of customized massage such as Swedish, deep-tissue, pregnancy, sports techniques and neuromuscular techniques. Some of our team members are also experts in specialized bodywork modalities that are beyond the scope of traditional massage such as reflexology, reiki energy healing, craniosacral therapy, Thai massage and Rolfing Structural Integration.
What other modalities does Lavender Farm Wellness specialize in?
One of our unique offerings is a movement discipline called Gyrotonic, which improves core strength, posture and breathing. It’s the most efficient form of self-care I’ve discovered in my twenty years in the wellness field. We also offer private and semi-private yoga, pilates reformer lessons and meditation experiences with our instructor who has more than twenty years of experience.
Lavender Farm Wellness is a year-round wellness center that helps clients pursue health, wellness and healing through a coordinated team of experts that work collaboratively to improve clients’ strength, flexibility and stamina while also reducing pain and stress. The center’s flagship space at 6 W. Creek Road offers an integrated team approach to wellness with massage, bodywork, functional medicine, yoga, meditation, pilates, Gyrotonic and coaching. These services can then be customized into wellness plans and retreats. For more information, visit LavenderFarmWellness.com.
