Facial Reflexology
Massage Today. By Rita Woods, LMT. Photo: Svilen Mushkatov. I thought that choosing to present information on facial reflexology would be an easy write. I use points on the face in my work and give a lot of credit to the many benefits my clients experience from this work. However, providing you with one workable system would mean ignoring other systems that provide equal or greater benefits so I decided to do what I teach my students – don’t worry about naming the points or memorizing what they do; just cover the whole face and you’ll get great results! Our focus here is not to treat a specific ailment but to provide whole body relaxation and balance during a massage session.
Most therapists are familiar with acupressure points and understand they are points along a meridian. Acupressure points and acupuncture points sort of go hand-in-hand in our business. There are systems of facial reflexology that use the acupressure points to bring about healing and balance elsewhere in the body. The points used might be Stomach 7 (St 7),which lies about an inch in front of the ear, or Large Intestine 20 (LI 20), which is beside the nostril. There is a system of Chinese facial rejuvenation using such acupressure points; in our facelift massage work, we try to focus on the points specific for that.
There are also systems of facial reflexology that mimic foot reflexology by projecting the soles of the feet onto the face. In this instance, each foot is superimposed over the face with the heels at the chin area and toes extending above the eyebrows. Each foot lies to the side of the nose with the big toes touching in the mid-forehead. In this system, the organs that you normally think of on the soles are now on the face.