November/December 2009 Alternative Health
What is CranioSacral Therapy?

by Shawn D. Axten

What if your body included not only an intricate blueprint for healthy function in your DNA, but also a “present-time” recording of your state of balance or imbalance? This present-time print-out can be assessed and treated through the CranioSacral system, allowing you to tap into your inner physician.

The body requires energy to maintain any status quo, be it balanced or restricted. If you have disorganized energy and tissue restriction from imbalance or past trauma, then much of your available energy is used for maintenance. In other words, if the energy your body needs to function is like a $100 bill, do you have to spend more of it on maintaining or walling off distress in the body than you have left to spend on moving forward in life?

What does CranioSacral therapy have to do with a balanced and energy-efficient body? We collect scars from normal everyday life — physically, emotionally and mentally — each becoming a unique patchwork quilt over time. One person’s body quilt tells a different story than another based on its history and habits.

CranioSacral therapy uses very gentle pressure and careful respectful techniques to check the integrity and balance of the body structures, releasing any restrictions to optimal flow. Therefore, the energy flows available to the body increase as diversions are removed, allowing more available energy to help the body’s own self-healing mechanisms.

Through restoring balance and efficiency on a mechanical and cellular level (and bringing attention to the trauma or old habits that led to the imbalance), greater energy is made available for normal healthy function of the brain, neuromotor, endocrine and immune systems.The CranioSacral system of the body consists of the cranial bones, facial bones and the dural membrane (a tough fibrous skin-like membrane) protecting the brain and spinal cord extending to the sacrum and tailbone. It includes the brain and all its structures, and the cerebrospinal fluid that cushions, nourishes and removes wastes from the brain.

This semiclosed hydraulic system produces and reabsorbs the cerebrospinal fluid, causing an expansion/production and contraction/re-absorption wave-like CranioSacral rhythm (CSR). This rhythm and its personal signature can be felt throughout your body. The CSR creates the present-time print out of the body’s status of balance.

Since the brain is influenced by the signature of the CSR, the entire neuroendocrine, neuromotor and sensorimotor systems are all impacted. Therefore, essentially every system in the body can be positively affected by the gentle, well-intentioned touch of a CranioSacral practitioner.

The list of symptoms or physical ailments that have been positively impacted by CranioSacral therapy is expanding. The Upledger Institute (www.upledger.com) has documented improvements in symptoms from migraine headaches to learning disorders to orthopedic problems.

CranioSacral therapy is truly an empowering therapeutic tool in the personal journey to health and wellness.

Shawn Axten, PT, CST is the owner of Children’s Upward Mobility, a private physical therapy practice in Vancouver. She presents a CranioSacral seminar on Nov. 14 in Vancouver. Visit www.chumpt.com.