Just look over the skin in a little bit more detail. And funny enough, your fingers are okay. You've got this web in between your thumb and index finger and if you press that in, that can help to release stress. And this is Rose, which we decided on. Oh, that smells lovely. So there's like little grooves in here where you get lots of crunchiness and you really want to get rid of all of this. It's amazing how much tension and stress you actually hold in this area even in down to the tips of the fingers. Hello Melissa. Hello. Welcome back. Thank you for coming again. Of course. And thank you for having such an interest in areas of relaxation and wellbeing. And we're going to try looking at something different today. You've expressed an interest in relaxation around the hand and a little bit of the arm. So we're going to focus on that today and promoting that sense of relaxation and wellbeing through an often neglected area such as the hand. And I'm going to break that down and structure it into some recognisable parts. So the first thing, if you're doing something like a hand massage, is that you really need to check thoroughly for any contraindications. So we're going to spend some time with a few implements here to look and check on the health and the wellbeing of your hands and do that quite thoroughly. The second part of this session is going to focus around looking at some pressure points that you can enable to help you cope with certain aspects such as pain and stress. And although we're probably going to do a more thorough session on reflexology or acupressure at a later stage, I just want to talk generally about the usefulness of those treatments and just more for a little bit of an introduction to those aspects and talk to you a little bit as well. A favourite of mine is aromatherapy oils and there are some that are much more beneficial for hand massage in particular and different types of skin than others. So I'm going to really talk generally about the massage oils that are useful for hand massage. And then lastly, we'll culminate with a little bit of a hand massage, maybe going slightly higher up above the wrist as well because we have lots of stress and pressure in our wrists, particularly in our hectic everyday lives. So they are worth a little bit of extra attention. So we'll focus in on that so that any stress and tension in that part of your body is relieved through the massage towards the end of the session. Thank you. How does that sound? It sounds wonderful. Thank you. Okay. So moving on to the next stage, what I'd like you to do is pop your hands on the table here and then what I'm going to do to start with is just look at your hands with my eyes and just give them a check. The sorts of things we're looking for here could contraindicate me continuing with the massage. They could change the types of oils that I could use. So I'm looking for anything that might cause an issue. So I'm just going to use my eyes to look very carefully at each hand and moving down each finger to check whether there is anything here that could cause a problem with a massage. Okay. Can you turn over your hand? That's right. Just look through there. And if anything is painful at all, do tell me. So sometimes if you can't see it with your eyes, you can feel it with your fingers and thumb. I can't feel anything major there. That all looks quite healthy on that hand. Okay. Now over to this one. So we'll start with this here. Okay. Can't see anything there. But I can see something on this finger. If you can see here, you've got it slightly red. I'm not quite sure what would cause that. Do you remember? Yeah. So last week I was cutting my friend's hair. And the scissors, we used some really small scissors and they just rubbed against my fingers. Oh, right. So it's more of a bruise. Yeah, a blistered. Deep, deep, always blistered. Gosh. That's the end of it. So it's coming towards the end of its healing. The skin isn't broken. So it's not a huge problem, but it's good to know that if it's painful at all, or in particular, if it reacts to the oil, then we'll immediately, I've always got something on the side to remove the oil straight away, just in case. But it might determine which oil I do use. So one that's for sensitive skin would be better, I think, just in case. So that's where this inspection of the hand is extremely useful. So let's just check these remaining ones. There's nothing on there. There's nothing on there. I can't feel anything, any hard. You're looking for any hard bumps. And when I go through, I'm not getting any pain reaction or anything like that. That's good. And how are your hands generally? They're generally a bit unloved, I think. Yes, yeah. They can be quite dry as well. I'll have a look. I'm going to move on to looking with a magnifying glass in a moment. And that might help me because you can't always visually see differences in the skin surface without having a deeper look, like using a magnifying glass. And there are various types, so we've got one type here that we're going to look at. Which should help me to determine whether there are patches of dry skin that need more attention. What about other areas of further up? What about your wrist? Do you ever get wrist pain or anything like that? Yes, actually. I think my laptop, if I use the track pad... Yes, okay. ...I often put a lot of pressure on my screen. So this could be sort of like a carpool, because you've heard of carpool tunnel syndrome, where you're overusing something. Do you use the computer a lot? Yes, a lot. Oh, okay, right. And is it both sides? No, it's just this wrist that I'm using on the track pad. On the track pad, right, okay. So, although we're focusing on the hand, part of the hand massage I would always advise is going a little bit further up. And in particular, because we just overuse our wrists, and just a little bit of extra massage around this area can really help, particularly if you're overusing it constantly. I mean, is it every day that you're using? Yes, I think maybe the occasional weekend is not being used as much. Okay, right. And are you aware that with regards to usage of your wrist, you're supposed to take a rest every hour? Really? Yes. So, maximum sort of usage, 50 minutes, and then give yourself a 10-minute rest, do something different, and that really... And in actual fact, that doesn't just apply to the wrist, that applies to your eyes because you're using your eyes a lot, and if you don't do that, it could cause stress headaches. It's all related. So, overuse is one of the worst things we can do, overuse of computers in particular, and it's causing a lot of issues that you could be storing up for later. So, actually having a massage there should really help you, but just take on board as well. Thinking about trying to avoid things for future wellness and wellbeing, I think thinking about these things for the future, it's worth having a massage, taking that break every hour, 10 minutes in every hour, and it doesn't mean you have to stop working, it just means maybe taking your eyes away from the screen and removing your hand from that tracking pad just for a little while. OK. Right, so that means we've got a couple of potential contraindications, so one is this, and the other one is we've identified that there might be an issue with the wrist in terms of preventative massage there. So, what I'd like to do now is look at the quality of the skin, and in particular I have this wonderful magnifying glass with the light, and that can help me just look over the skin in a little bit more detail. And funny enough, your fingers are OK, but I think it is... I don't know if you've come across this before, you've got patches here, and it's more over the top of your hands. I couldn't say whether that's linked to your overuse, but it just seems to be in that area where you're using your wrist most, I don't know if you've ever noticed that before. Whenever I have, I very rarely get eczema anymore, or extremely dry skin, but on both hands it's this part that will flare up, and when I was younger my part-time job was washing dishes and a pub, and I refused to wear the washing up gloves because they felt really great. So I think this part, which was already sensitive, got extra damage from that. Right, OK. So that needs a little bit of extra care actually, let's just check, I can see it on that hand. I just want to check these fingers, and see the fingers are not dry at all, but you have this sort of area here. Slightly different. OK, so I've checked that area where we've identified the dry skin, and what I'm going to do now is just look a little bit closer at your nails to check, apart from the little bit of nail polish on the end there. Yes, so I had gel nails back in December, and they got so brittle and damaged that I just let it grow out, but the damage is still a bit. OK, yeah. OK, let's have a little look. You have got a little bit of redness around the base of the nail. Yeah, I think maybe a little bit more TLC on your hands. Do you ever use hand cream? No, never. So there is a reason, sorry for the lucky making excuse, but a lot of them have fragrance in. And my hands cannot take that. OK, fair enough. Maybe we just need to find something that is sensitive hands, or sensitive skin. So yeah, I do think a little bit of nourishment around there at the base of the nail would make a huge difference to that. Not on that one, it's not everyone. And again, this is just lack of nail care or hand care generally. So that's interesting because I'm rethinking which oils to use on your hands as I'm doing this. So let's just see if we've got... So it's only some nails, but I do think they would benefit by a little bit of moisturisation at the bottom there. And the white elements in the nail, it is just down to diet and vitamins. I don't know if you take attention to what you eat. I do take supplements, but I don't always have the best diet. OK, so it's amazing where that shows in our bodies and nails it can show in terms of dehydration as well. But yeah, having a balanced diet would really help your nails as it does with other parts of your body as well. OK, I think I've got a really good idea now of... Let me just turn your hands over so... There's a few things to think about there. And while I'm doing this, I'm just thinking about which are the best oils to think about while we're doing that. I'll just turn over a little bit. Because we often think that massage is great for us. We're all aware of that. So one of the things obviously we're familiar with is that the massage really helps in terms of the overall wellbeing. And the benefits of hand massage are part of that. Hand massage in particular encourages relaxation by relieving tension and increasing the relaxation hormones, serotonin and dopamine. I don't know if you've heard of those at all. No. OK, so one of the huge benefits about massage is that it increases the blood flow and it increases the temperature. So while I'm doing this, I can even feel your hands increasing in temperature. And that really reduces what we call restriction and allows the muscles to relax. And the reason for that is there's another hormone called cortisol. And what cortisol does is reduces and decreases the levels of relaxation so that it causes stress and tension. And what we're trying to do through relaxation is almost reduce that hormone cortisol and replace it with the other ones, such as serotonin and dopamine. And massage really, really increases those hormones. And that just enables you mentally to relax. So it encourages you to relax and increase your sense of wellbeing. So if you think hand massage is just a hand massage, it's not, it's part of that overall wellbeing. And one of the ways that can increase that use of hand massage is through some treatments which have been used over the years called reflexology, hand reflexology and acupressure. And I will be looking at those in more detail at a later stage. So one of the other ways of really looking at the hands and the wellbeing in the hands is looking at these other treatments One is reflexology and reflexology based on the zones. So you can look at the hand almost mirroring the body in terms of these zones. And obviously you would need to look at that in a lot more detail. But those zones that match up and go up towards your body and by pressing certain aspects in reflexology, particular reflex points along the zonal lines can help with the healing process and in particular with relaxation. The other one is acupressure. And that's a very, very old traditional Chinese treatment which is based on the meridian lines. So it's slightly different although there is sometimes overlap between them but one is based on zonal therapy and one is based on meridians. So the acupressure is based on the meridian lines and applying pressure on these very special points stimulates the energy flow through the body. So just to note that there is no scientific evidence to support reflexology or acupressure working to help with medical conditions. It is very much anecdotal evidence and if it works for yourself and it relieves stress or it promotes healing then it's another useful tool in the box. But there is no scientific evidence to support this. But there is, for example, ways and methods that you can try this yourself. So for example, just looking at one of these pressure points here, you've got this web in between your thumb and index finger and if you press that in, that can help to release stress. So just by that. And then there's another point here. And a lot of these acupressure points have names but there are about 400 of them. So it's a session on its own. Is that 400 in the hand or 400 in the whole body? No, that's 400 in the whole body, yeah. And a lot of them are in the hand. So there's one here called Hergo. And the Hergo point is at the base of the index finger and you can use that for pain relief. So by using that as an acupressure, put enough pressure on there and it's known to be helpful in pain relief. So it depends, again, it would be as part of your consultation as to what you're aiming for, as to which part of the body you could be looking at. But again, with the hand, you know, it could be either acupressure or reflexology or just simple massage. Anything to promote healing, encourage those wonderful relaxation hormones has got to be a good thing, even if it calms people down so that, you know, they do feel better. Really relieving those stress hormones is the aim of some of these treatments. And in particular with hand massage, you often have tired and sore overworked muscles in your hand your wrist, and that can cause real problems. So tension in these areas is quite common with the life that we lead or many of us lead and is becoming more so with computer use. So what we need to really think about is spending a little bit more time on our hands as part of general massage. Because I think when you're actually taught massage, your hand is sort of like an afterthought. And I think the world is changing where we realise the amount of tension we hold in our hands and our wrists and even actually our elbows as well. Because if you think about where you sit with computers, and computers haven't been around that long, I mean, there are other jobs where you've got repetitive strain, but in particular with computers that's brought on a lot. OK, I think we'll start moving into the massage aspect now, which I know you're eager to do. But I think first of all, while we've been talking about contraindications and the benefits of hand massage, I think I've been thinking about the most suitable oils at the moment for what you've got, which is in particular, I'm thinking about the dry skin that we noticed here. The little bit of a mark that you've got there. So it's a little bit of bruising that you're still showing there. And I think what we'll do is we'll use a carrier oil, which is sweet almond. I think that's a really good one to use. It's very pleasant. It's got a mild scent and it's for sensitive skin, so less likely to get a reaction with that. And what I'd like to do is mix it maybe with a drop of essential oils. OK. So I think there are a number that we could think about using because a lot of these oils have got antibacterial, antifungal elements within them. But I think we have got a few that are really helpful for sensitive skin as well. And any potential inflammation such as chamomile is one, geranium, sandalwood, all very good. But I think in your instance, when we're looking at something that's soothing and calming, I quite like the sound of rose. I don't know how that feels. Yeah, I like rose, but I also haven't come across it that often. OK. So literally sweet almond oil, which is your carrier oil, all you could in a hand massage, even if you wanted to do it yourself, you could use sweet almond oil just as it is without worrying about which oils to blend. But as you've got me here, I think rose is a nice one. We'll literally just use a drop in a smaller amount of massage carrier oil, which is just enough to do a massage. So I'm going to go and blend that for you now. And we will then carry on with the actual massage itself. So I'm going to put away my other utensils here somewhere safe so that they don't get covered in oil. And then I'll bring the instruments for the oil and the mixing bowls and the oils so that we can blend that so that you can see how I blend that. Thank you. OK. Right. We're just going to blend the oil now. So we've discussed that sweet almond oil is a nice one for sensitive skin, which is what we're aiming for here. So we're just going to measure out enough for a hand massage. And this is rose, which we decided on. Oh, it smells lovely in here. It is, no. It might take a while. Remember this one, being the slow one to colour high? I know why did I choose this one. Do you know why rose is slow to colour? Because it's a really thick oil. Oh, OK. Rose is quite a thick oil, so it takes a while for it to come out, but you can see that's dropped in nicely. Is that just one drop? That's just one drop. That's gone in there. That's all you need. I don't know if you can smell that already. Yeah. And it's down to the aromatherapist, how much? You want to put in. You could put a drop more in there for that amount. Right. I'm just going to pop my little pot of oil here, and I'm just going to clear this away. All right. I'm just going to place this towel here, just so that you've got a little bit more comfort, because otherwise you can get wrist strain there. So we'll just do one hand at a time. So if you want to put in a drop more, so we'll just do one hand at a time. So if you could place one of your hands there. Is it best to play with all your sleeve stuff? I think if you could roll your sleeve up, I think that would be really helpful. You don't want to get oil on that lovely top. Oh, thank you. It's a beautiful colour. Thank you. Do you want my right colour? OK. We'll try with this one first. OK. And I'll literally just pop a little bit here. That's just enough to get that in there. And then if you want to, just rest your hand there. Just going to make sure that I've got all the oil along here. So what I'm going to start with is just a little bit of wrist movement, so putting your wrist in mine. And then we're just going to gently do that, because obviously you've mentioned your wrist issues. So we're just going to very gently move this wrist around, circle it, and then we're just going to rock this wrist slightly as well. And then I'm going to do what we call a palm massage. So that's just this area here. Stretch it out a little bit. Is your elbow OK there? Yeah, yeah, you're good. Just so that we can get into this palm a bit more. OK, and then you can rest for a little while, because I'm going to really focus on these areas. So there's like little grooves in here where you get lots of crunchiness. And you really want to get rid of all of this. See, got it there, a little crunch. You often find around this one with the computer use, you're overusing it, so you really want to get rid of anything that's built up within these sections. And then we're just going to focus a little bit on these fingers as well. We've done the palms, so let's just worry about these a little bit. You're finding that relaxing? Yeah, it's really zoning out. Finally, it's amazing how much tension and stress you actually hold in this area, even in down to the tips of the fingers. And just that little bit of tension. And I'm really pleased in a way, I must have just chosen rows instinctively, because that's really going to help with this redness area as well. A little bit of that essential oil around that is going to help as well. And it hasn't irritated this scratch at all, or bruise that you've got here. There we go. So you're always looking with oils, whether you've got any reaction to the skin in terms of redness. But there's nothing here, so that means the oils are really penetrating the skin well. Obviously, for hand massage, you can use other mediums as well. There's quite a few others that you can use, such as creams, balms, there's even waxes that you can use. But I like oils because it can penetrate the skin. Right, what I'm going to do now, we've got rid of all of these crunchy areas here. So I'm just going to do a little bit about this wrist area here. Do tell me if it's painful, sore, definitely crunchy all along here. Can you feel that? You can really feel that. It's really popping. So what we're going to do is just massage this a little bit more. It should really help with the stress there. And I would really advise you giving that some attention going forward. Maybe we'll all just have to bear that in mind and make sure we do a hand massage regularly. I'm just going to do some circles up here as well. Okay, that's that hand rested. So we want to swap over. Okay, we'll just do the same on this side. Alright. Okay, we'll do the same that we did on the other side, just getting some movement into that rest. A little bit of rocking as well. And then we'll go up into the palm here. A little bit of palm stretch. And then we'll go into these hand spaces in between here. It's nowhere near the same tension on this hand. It feels slightly different. That's fine. Just the other side needed a little bit more attention. Yeah, this is also my left hand. Right, yeah, that makes sense then, doesn't it? Okay, so let's just loosen up these hands right to the end, these fingers rather. See how the oil actually allows you to glide. So some people use creams and you've really got to be careful which creams you choose. There are some new balms out which are very nice, which turn from a sort of wax to an oil. They're quite useful. But you know me, I prefer the oils. Okay, I'm just going to focus a little bit around this wrist area, see if we've got similar... See, there's no crunchiness there at all, so this is very much a right-handed thing. Still will give the left a little bit of love as well. Let's just turn that over and do that. A little bit of crunchiness there. Just massage that out. Can I have your other hand please? So we're just going to finish off with a sort of joint massage coming down. I like to finish off with a little bit of a breathing exercise at the end just to finish off that massage. So if you can breathe with me for three breaths in and out. Thank you. Thank you so much. You're very welcome. Thank you.
