Many are used to considering hands as an organ capable of making, giving and taking objects and things. They allow you to take and leave, build materially, put together and separate, approach or move away.

The hands are also a means of communication, they underline words and behaviors and body postures, but the hands are also able to transmit information, and receive it from the outside, at a different level from the pure materiality of what is grasped and manipulated by them.

The hands are a complex and fascinating mosaic of bones and muscles, tissues and nerve endings. The joint of bones and muscles allows the hands to work accurately.

The palm of the hand has the largest amount per surface of tactile sensors and is therefore defined as the seat of touch . Thanks to this extreme receptive sensitivity the hand can also be considered as an organ capable of receiving stimuli which, in turn, can, by reflex communication, transmit to apparatuses and organs placed distally from the limb.

The effectiveness of reflexology massages is based on this communication.

The hands, unlike the feet, can lend themselves to self-treatment at any time when they feel the need to rebalance energy

Hand reflexology massage

Just as there is plantar reflexology, which places organs and body systems on the feet so that they can be treated through a distal and reflex massage, there is a reflexology that builds a map of reflex points on the hands .

The principles applied are the same: the mirror principle and the principle of similarity .

By opening your hands in front of you, with your thumbs facing each other, and therefore with your palms facing outwards, you can mirror the entire body: the part of the palm corresponds to the part of the chest, while the backs correspond to the back and the back of the body .

The upper part of the body is reflected on the fingers, while the organs with prominence on the right will be on the right palm while those with prominence on the left are on the left palm .

Moreover, according to the law of similarity, the organs of the abdomen, being internal and soft, are found on the innermost and soft part of the hand, and therefore on the center of the palm. In the same way the organs of the lower part, and the lower limbs, are closer to the part of the wrist .

According to reflexology, treating the fingers of the hand gives relief to problems related to the head and neck, while treating the center of the palm acts on the functionality of the stomach, intestine and liver . The back of the hand instead reflects the thoracic cage and the respiratory system : bronchi and lungs.

Treating these areas of the hands, and treating them even alone, with care and attention, while not knowing the exact and precise location of the organs, allows us to communicate with the deeper part of ourselves, activating a process of re-balancing .

Find out more about hand reflexology

Hand massage according to shiatsu and traditional Chinese medicine

The hand massage can also be performed by considering the meridian map of traditional Chinese medicine.

On the hands the energy channels run:

• lung : from the chest, just below the clavicle, along the inside of the arm, up to the tip of the thumb, in the part of the palm;
• large intestine : from the tip of the index, it runs along the back of the hand, along the medial part of the arm, up to the head;
• heart : from under the armpit, along the medial internal part of the arm, on the palm, up to the little finger;
• small intestine : from the little finger, on the dorsal part of the hand, along the arm, passing through the elbow, up to the shoulder and then to the head;
• minister of the heart : from the chest, above the nipple, along the center of the arm to the wrist, at the center of the palm and then up to the middle finger;
• triple heater : from the ring finger, along the dorsal part of the hand and arm, on the shoulder and then on the head.

The shiatsu treatment of the energy channels on the hands can be performed, like the reflexology treatment, in a general way: by massaging the hands with slight pressure on the palms and on the back, almost all the energy channels intersect.

For a more detailed work, however, a detailed knowledge of the tsubo (points on the meridians) and the meaning of the same are necessary.