hello and welcome to this 10 minute self foot massage that will help you relieve pain improve awareness in your feet and will even help improve your balance this is great for you if you are dealing with foot pain circulation issues or edema arthritis in your feet or neuropathy my name is ann swanson and i am a licensed massage therapist and the only thing you're going to need today is a chair to sit in and a cork so go ahead and grab a wine cork if you have one if not something else similar will do like a chapstick tube you can pause the video make sure you have that and now that you're back make sure you click subscribe below and hit that notification bell to be the first to know about my wellness wednesday videos where i release a video every wednesday to help you relieve pain and be your best self let's go ahead and get started so take a moment and sit in a chair sit tall and place your mini foam roller on the ground and then just pause spread your toes place them down big toe goes down little toe and then all the toes relax your feet for a moment feel your feet on the ground take a nice slow breath here and notice if one foot is craving a little more attention if one foot is speaking to you more and if that's true you can take that foot and we'll begin with that foot so you're gonna go ahead and grab your mini foam roller with your toes bring it over and just simply start by rolling it out it'll take a few moments to get the hang of it to get it at the right angle where you can get into a rhythm with it rolling with whatever pressure feels good for you up and down the sole of the foot we're getting to those muscles as well as the plantar fascia loosening it up you can go to the side a little bit i really like to go to the outer edge of my foot which according to chinese philosophy and reflexology there's some points up near the toe for your shoulder and arm so take a moment you can just focus in on that area can't hurt and then move down to the lower part which according to chinese philosophy is associated with your hips it's nice because we're also turning the ankle out a little bit which is some great hip mobility while we're at it and then we'll move it over into the arch so the top part of the arch and reflexology is more the neck area and then we move down the spine as we go down the arch i have a really deep arch so it's a little harder for me to get the cork in there you have to tilt it so we're tilting and moving our hip a little as a bonus and then we're going to go to the heel so the center of the heel right here in the back just rolling back and forth and then going to the top of the foot right under the middle toes and rubbing there which feels so good it'll even spread your toes a little bit this is associated with your upper traps your trapezius muscle those shoulder muscles that tend to get tight go ahead and just go wherever felt good for you i'm really like the outer edge and just do that again but by releasing your feet we're really focusing on your overall foot health which is key for your health key for your balance your ability to walk so now what we're going to do is take this cork and in order to help our balance we're going to work on spreading our toes so between the big toe and the pointer toe you're going to try to put the cork between there i have pretty long toes i can go pretty deep in there but wherever you can get it to spread the toes do your best if you can pick it up and you're going to try to let go of it which can be a little hard you can even if it gets stuck you can even use the other foot to help you get it out there as we move from toes to toes trying to get it in between the best you can may not go as far as mine that's okay but see if you can get it in there and pick it up working on our ability to spread our toes there we go this little one can be the hardest see if you can pick it up there and we're gonna go ahead and take this cork bring it over place it down for the other foot which might be jealous take a moment between two sides just pause here feel your feet notice the resulting sensations feel that foot that you just did feel the other jealous foot take a nice breath and we'll begin with that mini foam roller going up and down the sole of the foot wherever feels good just loosening up the plantar fascia that connective tissue on the sole of your foot it's really important to keep awareness in our feet especially as we age where we start to lose the ability to feel our feet fully you can get neuropathy or even just that lack of awareness in your feet can lead to balance issues walking issues so we want to maintain that so we're going to go now on the outer edge and focus on that if you haven't already my favorite part going up and down just getting that whole outer edge we'll make sure we get the whole thing and we'll move on over to the inner arch tilting your foot inward to be able to get here just doing the best you can if your foot ever makes the cork move out of your way you just have to grab it bring it back that's totally fine get to the lower part and then we'll go to the heel focusing in on the heel try not to tense your foot as you're doing this we'll then go to the part right below your toes in the center here see if that helps spread your toes a little bit preparing us for our toe exercise so go ahead and see if you can grab it and put it between your big toe and your pointed toe the best you can as deep as you can maybe pick it up and then bring it down grab it between the next two toes best you can this can take time it can take practice kind of a fun thing to do just have the cork on the ground oh gotta use this and play with this when you need a break from work keeping your mobility in your feet so you can do things with your feet all right just find what feels good now wherever it feels best for you focus in on that area increasing circulation also increasing your agility and mobility in your ankles which is really key to be able to catch yourself if you fall as well as of course awareness go ahead and place that mini foam roller down place your feet down big toe goes down little toes go down and then all the toes press the feet firmly down on the ground and feel the resulting sensations vibrations flows notice that glow from the increased circulation nice deep breath in slow breath out and if you feel any better from doing this ask yourself why you don't do this more often if you enjoyed this video make sure that you click that subscribe button below and click the notification bell so that you can get more videos like this every wednesday for wellness wednesday to help you relieve pain in a practical way and i love to hear from you let me know how you feel in the comments below and i'll be sure to get back to you thank you so much and be well [Music] you
