Jin Shin Jyutsu is a 5,000-year-old Japanese healing art based around holistic healing approaches which emphasize healing the whole body as opposed to just a section. Through thorough application of this art, it is possible to heal your inner body and improve your mental health just by holding your fingers.
Such claims may sound fantastic, if not outright absurd, but research has shown that this is real. The University of Kentucky Markey Cancer Center has discovered that cancer patients who were treated with Jin Shin Jyutsu “received statistically significant improvement” in regards to their stress, pain, and nausea. Furthermore, the Center found that those patients whose pain and nausea scores improved the most were patients who underwent this holistic therapy the longest.
This is not the only example. A case study conducted by the Kaiser Permanente Northwest Center for Health Research had a practitioner perform Jin Shin Jyutsu on a patient afflicted with multiple myeloma. Despite being at high risk for mucositis due to chemotherapy, the patient only had a mild case of mucositis once. He also “experienced little to no significant nausea throughout hospitalization,” with his only case of nausea occurring when the practitioner was unavailable.
Jin Shin Jyutsu works because all of our body parts are connected to one another. When one part of your body falls ill, this hurts the entire body and not just the afflicted part. At the same time, our hands are actually connected to emotions and organs. By holding them, we can improve our energy flow to vital areas and help our physical and mental health.
As Soul Spot observes, perhaps this is why babies suck their thumbs, or perhaps why we flip our middle fingers in anger.
Each of the five fingers, as well as the palm, correlate to different organs and emotions. Read on to learn how holding your fingers for just three to five minutes can improve your health.
1. The thumb
Holding the thumb enables us to let go of the past and helps us relieve our stress and worries. We can calm down, improve our self-esteem, and ensure that our sleep is restful. It can also improve our energy.
The thumb is connected to our spleen and stomach. As a result, the thumb ensures that our red and white bloods cells are high and that our stomach digests food faster.
2. The index finger
While the thumb calms us down, the index finger gives us the vitality and will to conquer our fears and strive for a better tomorrow. By improving our will, we now have the inner strength to fight our weaknesses as well as our addictions, so that we can strive for perfection.
The index finger is connected to our kidney and bladder, which helps prevent kidney stones from forming and balances our water and body chemistry.
3. The middle finger
As noted above, the middle finger is about anger, but anger is also a physical state. If you’re stressed out and furious about paying back loans or other money-related issues, you are more likely to have headaches, as your blood circulates to your head. This also means that you have less blood for the rest of your body, worsening your response to injuries and making you tired.
By releasing the energies in your middle finger, you can undo those effects. Furthermore, the middle finger is connected to our liver and gall bladder. By improving those organs, you can ensure that your energy flow is strong enough to keep you energetic.
4. The ring finger
In some ways, the ring finger is similar to your thumb. It is associated with sadness and negative attitudes which sap your energy.
But the index finger is also connected to the lungs, and ensures that you will breathe deeper and easier. As a result, releasing the energies in your ring finger will also improve your muscles and nervous system. With less stress and more energy, you can change your lifestyle for the better.
5. The little finger
The little finger concerns itself with your heart, and thus with your blood. And since a proper blood flow is necessary to keep your other organs working, it is in some ways the most important finger of all.
Improving blood flow improves your brain, which thus improves your ability to think and concentrate on important matters.
6. The palm
Stress is not just bad because it hurts us, but because it can damage our relationships with our loved ones. Releasing the energies in your palm will help you connect better with those important people in your life, grant you positive thinking, and will ensure your life becomes more orderly.
The palm is connected with the diaphragm and umbilicus.
If you have the time and energy, then you should try holding all your fingers, one at a time, to improve your health as a whole. Fortunately, the ancient art of Jin Shin Jyutsu was designed so that anyone could quickly and easily improve their body’s total physical and mental health.
Here are some self-help charts to get you started with the practice.
References:
https://www.jsjinc.net/ns/ups/web-articles/MarkeyCancerCenter-ResearchPoster.pdf
http://www.21stcenturymed.org/haptic-medicine-cancer-mm.html
http://www.jinshinjyutsu.org.nz/self-help-charts/
Featured photo credit: www.cctcentre.com.au via cctcentre.com.au
