Exploring How Foot Rub Techniques Can Improve Sleep

What could be sweeter than a night of peaceful, restful sleep? It is time for your body and mind to relax and heal. Most humans spend up to a third of their lives sleeping.

Lack of sleep or poor sleep quality hurts our health, both in the long and short term. This is because sleep helps put the brain on standby and improve bodily functions.

Those who cannot fall asleep properly or who wake up often during the night often have problems with calming down and switching off. This could be a result of stress and worries. For them having a good night’s sleep would mean taking medications or imbibing natural sleep aids and practices such as foot rubs or massages to improve sleep.

Foot massage

Massaging your feet before bed can make all the difference. It may seem trivial but go back thousands of years. The feet have over 7000 nerve endings that pass through all the organs of the body. By stimulating them the right way, we can activate how organs heal concerning the various points.

“Feet are especially sensitive: they have 7,200 nerve endings. Mechanoreceptors and exteroceptors sensitive to pressure are widely distributed on the sole.”

Dwight C. Byers, author of Better Health with Foot Reflexology.

The foot reflexology for insomnia is born from the need to improve the sleep-wake cycle. Since one of the biggest problems preventing us from sleeping is stress, it is easy to deduce how much difficulty we may have when going to sleep. Massaging the foot stimulates the nervous system and opens up energy pathways that may be blocked or congested.

Foot massages for insomnia have been confirmed as a powerful tool to relax the body and mind. If you are having difficulties sleeping, then it’s time to give yourself a little massage.

How Foot Massages Can Improve Sleep

When pressure is applied to the foot, it reduces stress levels by relaxing the muscles because it is full of reflex points. By massaging your foot or having your foot massaged, you experience a deep sense of relaxation ending up in a natural state of deep rest.

If done the right way, foot massages promote relaxation, psycho-physical balance, improves circulation, encourages healing of the whole body, and reduces pain and all ailments related to agitation, anxiety, neurosis.

However, by massaging specific points of the foot, maximum relaxation is achieved, useful for promoting peaceful and healthy sleep. Massage also increases lymph movement, which removes toxins from the body and speeds up the healing process.

How to massage your feet before going to sleep

For your massage to work, you need to relax your mind and try to stop your thoughts. Then follow these steps:

1. Press on the toes starting from the big toe’s fleshy part and then finger by finger.
2. Start again from the big toe by pressing on the finger’s base and then continuing with all the others.
3. With the thumb, press gently from the big toe to the heel and then return in the opposite direction, following the foot’s inside edge.
4. Place the thumb in the center of the sole, press this point for 30 seconds, and then release and repeat the pressure three more times.

Repeat daily to notice the benefits as soon as possible. You can also use 1 or 2 drops of essential oil of your choice diluted in a carrier oil (such as sweet almond oil) to facilitate the massage and further relax.