Coloring Madness
It is November, which was made into a month of “Veterans and Military Appreciation” last year. As we well know, our military and any of our uniformed individuals, past and present, suffer from PTSD and high-level anxiety. Any situation that can pull them back to that time or moment of their highest flight or fight situation, the extreme trauma can feel very real even if it has been years. Our brain is an amazing machine that can protect us by adapting to every situation. However, once it is learned, it is hard to unlearn it.
The good news is there are many ways to manage mental disorders. Every person is different, so some things may work best for some and not others. Patience in finding the right therapist and the right modality is crucial. Sometimes it is the therapist that is not working as opposed to the modality used.
Massage is one of the many ways to help manage mental disorders of any type. The main modality will be CranioSacral Therapy. This modality involves very light touches to the skull and traction down the spine to the sacrum. A lot of therapists will say this is energy work. The truth is any massage modality is partially energy work.
Craniosacral Therapy, in physical terms as opposed to energetic terms; and this is strictly how I see things personally so others may or may not agree with me; can help ease the tension in the skull. The sutures, or the skull joints, are there for a reason. We are always moving (yes, the skull moves) in even the smallest ways. The sutures are there to give our brain and our head in general the flexibility to expand and retract. It is possible for the skull to be so tense and cause dysfunctions, such as vertigo.
This modality can also enhance cerebral spinal fluid flow. The cerebrospinal fluid is crucial to our central nervous system. It protects the central nervous system as a cushion against its surroundings. It is also like our blood function in two ways: providing essential nutrition and, therefore, also bettering the function of the brain.
Everything we feel emotionally, feel physically on our skin, muscles, and bones, thoughts that go through our heads, and actions we take physically are all chemical reactions in the brain. Just like how better blood flow encourages better function of our organs, better flow of our cerebral spinal fluid encourages better chemical reactions in the brain. I believe tension around the skull can create restrictions and dysfunction in the brain just like our vital organs.
Craniosacral Therapy, by loosening up the tension around the skull and central nervous system, can help manage any sort of mental disorder. If you have never experienced this before, feel free to ask me, Cat, to try it out.
Now on another subject! What is this madness with adults coloring in coloring books??? Of course, we saw them everywhere for children. However, the designs have changed to appease adults. They are more lines to color in, more intricate, and more diverse. Why is this?
It seems a lot of people are starting to find it calming and relaxing. It is also known for psychologists and psychiatrists to “prescribe” coloring, which apparently was started by Carl Jung, a psychologist, decades ago.
The use of your creative side by using a diverse selection of colors can help your mental health. From anxiety to depression and even PTSD. It can help bring you to your present, the visually stimulating colors (once you colored some or all in) can be relaxing and calming, and the act of coloring can be fun just for the simple fact that it can take you back to when you were a child again, coloring a coloring book. It feels good to not be an adult for a moment or two.
This simple activity calms the part of your brain called the amygdala. The amygdala controls your fight or flight response and a lot of us suffer from an active amygdala. It shows as anxiety, depression, PTSD, and more.
The act of pencil/marker/crayon to paper brings you focus and concentration. You can exercise and strengthen your focus and concentration by doing this. It also, apparently, can help with strengthening your problem-solving skills. The theory is that putting color on a black and white page brings out the story in it, but putting the right color to the right area (really there is not right or wrong) is a form of problem-solving. Who knew?!
CHI Massage Therapy has started a coloring book series called “CHI the F*** Out” as opposed to Chill the F*** Out. Currently, we have a Kaleidoscope/Geometric version and a Christmas version on Amazon. We have a third one waiting for Amazon to publish and 3 other ones waiting for editing. Keep an eye out for all of them! For now, here are the links to the four currently available on Amazon.
Click on the image to take you to Amazon.
We will have 9 coloring books available on Amazon, if not already. The series is called “CHI The F*** Out”. We will also have copies in person at the office, for those who do no shop on Amazon.
