Look after your hands (like they look after you)

The self-massage your hands and mind will love

Writing, carrying, typing, driving, creating, cleaning, achieving – day after day after day. Ever thought how your eight fingers, two opposable thumbs and palms work tirelessly without complaining?

Opening and closing up to 25 million times in our lives, our hands are also essential communicators when it comes to expressing ourselves with others, secret detectives when it comes to understanding the world around us, and – of course – integral to every loving act.

From the unifying power of touch and lifting heavy loads, to threading cotton through the tiniest eye of a needle and producing world-changing music and art – our hands are exceptional. Yet we can easily take our miracle mitts for granted and often overlook and neglect them. Stress, work and even the weather can all affect our hands and therefore how the rest of us feels, meaning they can hold tension we never knew was there.

The connecting power of touch…

The very first language we learn, uniting us often more powerfully than words, touch has been shown to lower cortisol – reducing stress, blood pressure and heartrate – while giving us a love-boost of oxytocin which ups our sense of connection with another and improves our immune systems.

More than a handful of studies have looked into the effects of touch on our brains and our emotions, psychologist Matthew Hertenstein for one demonstrated the power of touch alone in 2009. In a series of studies volunteers communicated a range of emotions – anger, anxiety, love, gratitude, happiness, sadness – as they touched a blindfolded stranger who then demonstrated a high level of accuracy when it came to decoding which emotion the person touching them was feeling.  

Aura-Soma Lifeline Experience Massage

Align yourself with your higher will as you re-connect with a loved one through the power of touch and clear blockages with our Aura-Soma Lifeline Experience Massage. Practiced with any Equilibrium Oil, Pomander or Quintessence, it takes you from the point of conception (at the top of your thumb), through your lifeline, restoring balance and opening you up to ironing out any troubles you’ve experienced along the way. 

• Find a comfortable position where you may both give and receive your Lifeline Experience Massages without holding any body tension
• Thumb to thumb, make gentle little circles that can just be felt by your partner (not moving the skin)
• Trace a delicate line of spirals from the very tip of your partner’s thumb, all the way down the side of their thumb to the crease of their wrist; continue spiralling your thumb lightly all the way across their wrist; just once, in one direction only
• Repeat for seven minutes on each hand.

Notice any feelings or thoughts you experience as giver or receiver and take note of which stage of the lifeline this connects with – reflect on what comes up together.

Giving and receiving this hand massage facilitates the continuous circulation and flow of life’s energy, restoring balance and improving your overall sense of wellbeing.