Me too. While my mother has fat, square feet tasseled with toes obediently ranged in size order, her four children have all drawn the paternal gene and been blessed with the Greek foot, or Morton’s toe, and the legacy that goes with it.

Standing proud, the Morton’s toe surveys its kingdom.

What is it?

Look at the space between your big toe and second toe. If you have Morton’s toe, the gap is deeper than the space between your second and third toe. Morton’s toe is actually a misnomer — Morton’s foot is a more accurate description as the problem lies not with the second toe, which appears lengthened, but rather with the first metatarsal which is too short.

Great. So what?

The problems that this creates aren’t only aesthetic. A Morton’s foot is inherently unstable due to uneven weight distribution. One of the primary weight-bearing areas of the foot is at the 1st MTP  (metatarsal–phalangeal) joint, where the metatarsal meets the big toe. However, if you’re stuck with a stunted first metatarsal, any weight has to shift across to the 2nd MTP. This makes the foot wobble inwards or outwards, as if you were walking on ice skates. 

Graceful as a swan…

Um, more like this:

… that’s been shot out of the sky.

Your ankle, calf muscles, Achilles tendon, knees, hips, lower back — they are all struggling to keep you upright. And if you’ve ever longed of doing a downward dog in yoga with your heels flat to the floor or a squat in which you don’t fall backwards like a drunken Weeble, well… some dreams just aren’t meant to be, my friend.

Whenever treating anybody with Morton’s foot it’s not unusual to find:

• poor foot dorsiflexion (the movement that brings the top of the foot towards the lower leg)
• limited ankle mobility
• flat or collapsed arches

If there is limited movement in one joint, other joints have to compensate. Consequently, there is often a history of knee and hip problems (eg. arthritis, worn cartilage, piriformis syndrome) and lower back pain. Callouses on the medial side of the big toe indicate the uneven walking gait and overpronation typical to Morton’s foot (where the ankle rolls inwards); these callouses sit on the neck reflex. What starts at the bottom of the musculoskeletal system invariably works its way up.

You’re quite the ray of sunshine. Anything else?

In addition, the stomach meridian ends at the  top of the second toe. In someone with a Morton’s foot where the second toe is subject to continuous friction, it’s not unusual to find disorders along this meridian, such as:

• sinus problems
• stomach disturbances
• eye disorders
• chronic throat conditions
• spleen and pancreas disorders

But because meridian’s work in pairs, it’s then necessary to look for disorders along the partner of the stomach meridian, the spleen/pancreas meridian, which rises from the back of the big toe (itself at a disadvantage from the uneven weight distribution). Disharmony here would manifest as, for example:

• fatigue
• digestive problems such as diarrhoea, IBS
• metabolic problems, such as hypothyroidism and hyperthyroidism
• sweet tooth, a tendency towards addictions such as alcohol and tobacco
• obesity

So whenever I have a client presenting with Morton’s toe, they’re amazed by how much their foot has already told me before I’ve even taken their history.

So what’s to be done, beside cutting off the end of my toe with a hacksaw?

Less is more, true. But start by changing your footwear. Buy shoes that are either a half or full size bigger, that have a roomy toe box so the second  toe isn’t rubbing.

Ladies, you know what I’m going to say. Keep high heels for special occasions. The head of the second metatarsal is already under pressure and heels will exacerbate this. Heels reduce ankle mobility and flexibility of the calf muscles still further. I won’t say, “YOU. NO. DON’T EVER WEAR STILETTOS” like some sort of deranged officer from the Foot Gestapo, but I will probably look at you with an ill-disguised I-told-you-so face when your knee pain worsens.

You’ll never be Mo Farrah but you can improve flexibility in your ankles by carrying out the below daily:

1.  Get a tennis ball and use it to massage all the muscles in your calves and feet. Roll all the way from behind the knee and side to side. Put the ball on the floor and roll your foot over it. You can do this while watching Coronation Street.

2.  Stand in front of a wall (you might have to move the TV for uninterrupted viewing) and place your left foot behind you and your right foot a few inches away from the wall. Bend the right leg, trying to touch the wall with your knee without lifting the heel. Feel the stretch but do not force it. Hold for 30 seconds. Repeat five times then swap legs.

3.  Get your tennis ball for this deluxe version of No. 2. While attempting to touch the wall with your knee, massage your calf muscles with the ball.

Finally, the taunts of ‘Finger Feet’ and ‘Mutant Toe’ by those less well endowed will only serve to make the Servants of Morton stronger. You are one of the blessed 10 per cent. Paint those toe nails, wear those sandals (but not flip-flops, they won’t stay on), and point your toes with pride.

(If you would like to use any of this information in your own newsletter or blog post please credit © Trudy Morrison, The Reflexologist at Pier Red with a link. Thank you!)

Yes, I’m the proud new owner of an iPhone. Not one moment has gone by in the past week when I haven’t thought of giving it a loving glance or a comforting tap.  I’ve tweeted, Facebooked, emailed and messaged; I’ve read the weather forecast, trawled Wikipedia, checked Jamie Oliver for recipes and sniggered at LOLcatz. And then? Then I’ve done it all over again.

There’s no getting away from it — fabulous though technology is, it’s an incredible time-waster. But our love affair with interconnectivity isn’t just bad for the economy. Our physical and mental health is suffering, struggling with over-stimulation caused by mobile devices.

Down-time is a thing of the past; your boss can get hold of you anytime, anywhere, and you’ll be expected to respond. It’s becoming harder to separate work life from personal life. The ease with which we can ‘like’ a friend’s photo or anecdote, or fire off a quick emoticon, is eroding our ability to connect with one another on a meaningful level. In addition, we don’t always respond to a friend’s happy post with the pleasure that we should, instead turning inwards and reflecting on how our own lives seem inadequate in comparison.

And the result of this? Stress and anxiety, running in the background like low-level radiation poisoning our enjoyment of life.

Phew. And now the good news…

The practice of mindfulness has proved itself as effective as cognitive behavioural therapy and antidepressants in treating some symptoms of anxiety, depression and pain. It has soared in popularity, coinciding with a spike in the incidence of depression and stress. In 2013, over 50 million prescriptions for antidepressants were issued in the UK, a 7.5% increase on the previous year. Financial insecurity, employment worries and technology conspire to make us worry more and sleep less.

But I don’t expect you to shave your head and join a Buddhist monastery. That would be stupid; not everyone suits orange. Mindfulness is not meditation, although the focus on the breath is also part of meditation practice. Rather, mindfulness is a way of being present in the moment, a skill that anyone can acquire to calm a troubled mind and promote focus, clarity and peace.

Being ‘present in the moment’? What sort of hippy-dippy-speak is that?’

I’m so glad you asked, and so nicely too. When we have anxiety, we have a problem dealing with distracting thoughts. We end up so consumed by these thoughts that we can’t distinguish between a helpful, problem-solving thought and a nagging fear that has no benefit or basis in real life. We lose perspective and focus, our thoughts spin out of control, drenching our system with fight or flight hormones that have nowhere to go. (See my previous post, How Stress Can Make You Fat.)

But what if you could retrain your mind not to rehearse tragedies and dream up trouble? Imagine how much calmer you would feel, how much more in control. And that’s pretty much it – mindfulness is about controlling your thoughts so that they don’t control you.

Being in the present means consciously stepping back from those thoughts and bringing your attention to the moment you are in. That moment probably consists of sitting on a chair gazing despondently out of a window or lying in bed at 4 o’clock in the morning staring hot-eyed at the ceiling. There is no danger in either scenario but your thoughts have led your body to believe that there is. That mind–body connection, see?

By being present, you can stop yourself being pulled under by a tide of negative thinking; you’re able to put your feet down and feel the bottom. If you can breathe for 10 minutes, you can be mindful. No other qualification required.

I’ve been fortunate enough to attend several mindfulness courses at Kagyu Samye Ling, a Tibetan Buddhist monastery set in the Eskdalemuir countryside, and one at the Borders General Hospital, so I know from experience that led mindfulness is helpful when you’re new to it.

BUT! You know how at the beginning of this post I was tearing a strip off modern technology for over-stimulating our brains? Here is where it gets the chance to act as a force for good, because there are some truly great apps and videos out there that will help you with your mindfulness induction. I’ve recently discovered Andy Puddicombe, a former Tibetan Buddhist monk and founder of Headspace, a company on a mission to make meditation relevant and accessible. He speaks clearly and simply, without any spiritual or religious undertones that can be off-putting for some.

Mindfulness and meditation aren’t about rejecting the modern world;  they’re simply tools to help us navigate through fast water without becoming overwhelmed. Try this video. If you like it, I can personally recommend the Headspace app.

As I say, mindfulness is a skill anyone can acquire, although…

…it will take a little while to get the knack. Persevere.

FURTHER RESOURCES:

Books:

Get Some Headspace: 10 Minutes Can Make All the Difference by Andy Puddicombe

The Miracle of Mindfulnessby Thich Nhat Hanh

Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation for Everyday Life by John Kabat-Zinn

Websites:

Be Mindful

Mindfully Being

Sad, but horribly true according to evolution

With appetite loss usually only short term, the answer lies in the food choices we tend to make when we’re stressed. This is a simplification of how stress works:

1. Stress is a way of preparing the body for action, be it fight or flight. To enable that action, your brain points out to your adrenal glands that it might like to release some of its mother-lode into your bloodstream before you’re eaten by a sabre-toothed tiger. The adrenals are only too happy to oblige and pump out adrenaline.

2. So far so good. But the brain also knows that you will need quick access to energy to deal with said sabre-toothed tiger, irrespective of whether you plan to club it or run away from it, so it orders your body to release glucose into the bloodstream to fuel either your thumping arm or sprinting muscles.

3. Splendid. You’ve escaped unscathed, well done. But hang on, you need to replace those stores and calm down all at the same time. Carbohydrates are a perfect quick-fix energy source and they promote the release of serotonin, the body’s happy hormone. Cue wrong food choices. Your low blood sugar level makes thinking clearly difficult, so you kiss the chicken salad goodbye and French kiss the jam sponge.

But why is cake a wrong food choice? I hear you cry. (And believe me, I share your pain.) Because of the nature of modern stress. Our body is designed to cope with acute stress and it does that with brilliant efficiency.

However, the way we live our lives today is against a white noise of chronic stress, rushing from one task to the next to fulfil imposed deadlines and workloads.

We are awash with adrenaline and cortisol but with no sabre-toothed tiger in sight. We eat to replenish energy stores we haven’t even used and to self-medicate to bring us a semblance of calm. Voilà, big bottom.

(In addition, chronic stress can contribute to insulin insensitivity which in turn leads to weight gain, type II diabetes and… Oh, dear. I can see I’ve depressed you, so I’ll shut up.)

Some good news then. Reflexology is a holistic therapy and as such pays particular attention to the mind-body connection. Sounds a bit New Age-y? No, actually very science-y.

Basically, it means that our mental state can impact positively or negatively on our physical health, and vice versa — what we eat and how much we exercise can affect our mental health. The mind and body are essentially inseparable, sharing a common chemical language. You think about a dentist’s appointment coming up and your body will oblige by releasing fight or flight hormones; you leap out of the way of a speeding car and then your mind will enjoy filling you in with all the what-ifs afterwards.

Reflexology seeks to put people in tune with this connection, not only by inducing deep relaxation but by making them aware of mindfulness techniques, those powerful weapons in the arsenal against this modern scourge of chronic stress, more of which I’ll go into next time.

So, yes, you can have your cake and eat it. Or rather, you can have your cake but you won’t want to eat it. That’s almost the same thing, isn’t it?

Next time: The practice of mindfulness and how it can help you.

The issue has been rumbling on and off ever since I trained back in 2000, and with more and more people demanding holistic therapies from their GP surgery you could argue that there is a place for statutory regulation, that wherever public money is being spent safeguards need to be put in place.

Reflexology is fast becoming the go-to complementary therapy recommended by the NHS to patients with stress-related disorders. It’s also finding its way into antenatal care, having proved an effective way of reducing length of labour and the need for pain relief. Meanwhile, homeopathy, once the trailblazer of complementary healthcare within the NHS, has been caught in the crossfire between patients who swear by its efficacy and the British Medical Association who denounce the therapy as “witchcraft”.

And this is the problem — how can you give credibility, necessary to justify the expense to the taxpayer, to therapies that don’t lend themselves easily to empirical study? Holistic therapies by their very nature treat mind, body and spirit, yet for the scientists and the accountants only the body is examined for evidence of ‘successful treatment’.

With this in mind, blanket statutory regulation for complementary therapies would be an attempt at buying respectability for the benefit of the established healthcare paradigm, as if by being a member of an overarching organisation somehow makes up for the difficulty of quantifying results in the accepted manner. The NHS understands this and states on their website:

“At present, two CAM professions are subject to statutory regulation – chiropractic and osteopathy. The statutory regulatory body for chiropractic is the General Chiropractic Council (GCC) and the statutory regulatory body for osteopathy is the General Osteopathic Council (GOsC)…

…The government has no current plans to extend statutory regulation to other CAM professions, such as aromatherapy and reflexology. It encourages other complementary and alternative medicine professions to work towards voluntary self-regulation. If these professions then wish to pursue statutory regulation, they will need to demonstrate that there are particular risks to patients that voluntary regulation cannot address.”

Reflexology carries no such risks and therefore statutory regulation would be of no benefit to the public. On the contrary, by adding an additional layer of bureaucracy, regulation would carry a cost implication that could push complementary therapies out of reach of those most in need. At the moment, self-regulatory bodies are already working well, ensuring that professional complementary therapists keep abreast of the latest developments in their field and providing a platform from which they can seek help and advice from fellow practitioners if required.

If you are looking for a reflexologist there are steps you can take to reassure yourself that your therapist is reputable.

1. Ask to see their qualifications. This should include a qualification in anatomy and physiology as well as one in reflexology.

2. Confirm any stated membership with the relevant professional body.

3. Check your therapist has insurance. Most insurance companies will not insure a therapist unless they are a member of a professional standards association, for example, the Complementary Therapists Association, the British Reflexology Association, or Association of Reflexologists.

These simple steps will go a long way to giving you peace of mind — what holistic therapy is all about, after all!

]]> https://thereflexologist.wordpress.com/2013/11/16/reflexology-and-regulation/feed/ 0 trudymorri5on Rowing boat on a still green sea https://thereflexologist.wordpress.com/2013/11/03/be-a-lover-not-a-hater/ https://thereflexologist.wordpress.com/2013/11/03/be-a-lover-not-a-hater/#respond Sun, 03 Nov 2013 18:28:03 +0000 http://thereflexologist.wordpress.com/?p=295 What I’ve learnt as a reflexologist is that there’s an awful lot of foot hate out there. Deep, visceral and uncompromising, the hate for this amazing feat (hah!) of engineering just keeps raining down.

“Oh, no, you’d rather scoop out your own eyeballs with a spork than look at my feet.”

“Sorry, but once you get a glimpse of my plates you’ll run screaming from the room.”

“I’ve got the ugliest feet in the world. No one’s going to want to suck these toes.”

Well, while the last might be true, I have yet to see a pair of feet that has had me swallowing back bile as I’ve worked the reflexes. And I’ve seen a lot of feet. Big, small, fat, thin, sweaty, dry, pale, flushed, oily, hairy, scarred, pinned, fewer toes than there should be — as far as feet go, I’m unshockable.

Because the thing is, I don’t see just feet; I see your current state of health. This amazing collection of 52 bones, 66 joints, 214 ligaments, 38 muscles and tendons tells me a story. That calloused big toe? Possible neck problems. Stiff ankles? Chances are your lower back isn’t feeling the best. High arch? Often indicates a tendency for chest problems, such as asthma.

Your feet contain the story of your overall health and well-being, and they’re trying to tell it to you. Those bunions, the recurrent athlete’s foot, the persistent verruca, the calloused toes — they’re not there to stop you wearing flip-flops in public. They’re the polite equivalent of a foot clearing its throat and going: “Excuse me? Hello? Got something here you might want to look at.”

By reading the tone, texture, mobility, contour lines, spots, disorders, blemishes and, yes, smell of your feet, a reflexologist can decode the signals from your feet and work with you to return balance to your whole body.

So, there’s nothing to be embarrassed about. Those ‘ugly’ feet have your back. Literally.

Join me for a reflexology open day at Pier Red, 27 Castlegate, Berwick-upon-Tweed, on Wednesday, 6th November 2013, 10.30am to 6.00pm.

Oh, and look! My new uniform has arrived!

Not every reflexologist wears a uniform but I think it makes a great first impression. While holistic therapies are more mainstream these days, there is still scepticism out there so a good image is important. When people have reflexology for the first time they don’t always know what to expect, and seeing someone in uniform gives them confidence that the therapist is a professional.

I’m very excited and, yes, nervous about the open day coming up on Wednesday, 6th November. I’m excited because I feel The Reflexologist at Pier Red could work very, very well. Artist Kate Philp has done a fantastic job with the decor of the place, but then you’d expect her to have an eye, wouldn’t you? The surroundings feel sophisticated, yet still warm and welcoming. Clients will feel fabulously pampered. (Did you know they also serve coffee, wine and cakes? Sshh. I didn’t say a word. Your body is a temple…)

And I’m nervous because… what if no-one turns up? What if I’m stood there in an empty room like one of those awful dreams in which you’re standing naked on stage in front of an audience? Blimey, that wouldn’t be good.

So put your name on the guest list and come along on 6th November for a chat. I’m also giving free 10–15 minute aromatherapy foot massages. And there is that coffee and cake, remember…

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“And suddenly you know: It’s time to start something new and trust the magic of beginnings.”

― Meister Eckhart