Sunday, May 24, 2009

Sustainable Massage therapy

In my blog about Sustainable Massage therapy, I am going to describe how principle of sustainability in relation to massage practices. I will get into more detail of the environment, economic, social and human relationship within a massage practice.

Environmental Capital
The environment is such a huge thing to describe, it’s something you see every day and can take no notice of, even when it is a big part of everyone’s life. The environment has been taken for granted for so many years that it will never be the way it was, so many years ago. But now that people have realized what us human have one to this world, we are taken a bit more care of it such as, recycle, reuse and reduce. Using less power by turning power off at the wall, using energy saving light bulbs. Having a compost bin so we don’t throw away things that can help animals and our garden. Using the input and output rule will help keep the environment healthy and safe from degradation. Output rules states that waste should be at a level which can be assimilated without environmental degradation and the input rule states that in the case of renewable resources, harvesting should not impair renewal. Non renewable resources should be used at less than the historical rate in which renewable substitutes can be found or manufactured.

Social Network.
Social networking is to do with the relationships between two individuals as well as in a group situation. It is maintaining good friendships with a wide range of people and these people are people who are positive and encouraging towards you. Surrounding yourself with these sorts of people helps you to become a more positive and encouraging person and helps you not to be drained out by negative or draining individuals. After a massage people can shut down, become more emotional but can improve relationships between not just the therapist and client relationship but improve the client’s relationship with others. As a massage therapist getting to know your surrounding and the people within your surroundings helps to strengthen social relationships within the community and can also help with business as you can share information or maybe even get referrals from other massage therapists.

Economic, Financial Capital.
Everyone is always worried when they start up a business as they do not know if they are financially secure to be able to make the business work and work well. They need to know that they are going to have enough money to be able to continue going and as a massage therapist we need to know that we are going to have clients coming to us and getting our name out there to make new clients so we do have the money coming in to be able to pay bills and employees if we decide to employ others as well as earning a wage ourselves so we can live. We need to have a business plan on what will happen if we aren’t earning as much money as we want to and what will happen if we are to overloaded with work and do not have enough time or therapists to be able to deal with the load. Being able to advertise your business is a huge part of getting your business going but the best way of advertising is through others telling friends and family about your business and getting clients to do the advertising that way. It is cheaper and more effective as people are more likely going to believe their friends and family then they are a radio add or newspaper article.

Human Capital.
As a human being, we need enough sleep to function properly and be able make the right decisions. We need to eat and drink the right foods to make sure that are bodies are working to the best of their ability. But most of all that we are looking after ourselves. If we do not do these things then all the other functions in our body do not work to their best and that is when things can go wrong and as a massage therapist we need to be able to work properly without hurting ourselves or others. So doing these things are important as we are not just looking after ourselves we are also trying to help others lives to be better. We all these things that we need such as food water, correct amount of sleep, things such as health and education is a major factor that can make these factors unrealistic. So we need to make sure we have great health by having checkups and seeing a counselor so not just our bodies but our minds have great health and we need to be able to access these services easily and without stress of money matters. So we as individuals need to work with society to make this happen. We need to make sure we learn as much as we can when we are young so we can grow up and be able to use our education to the best of our abilities and maybe even be able to help others. We can help by promoting the health a well being of others, body awareness such as push play, stress management and helping to clean out toxins with the use of massage. As an employer we need to make sure our employees have manageable workloads, they are cared for, safe work loads and provide and promote training to make sure that all these are learnt to the best of your knowledge. But most of all we need to take care of ourselves before we can help others.

So to conclude this blog I believe to have a good sustainable massage practice your need to be able to include all these things into your practice, however it needs to work for you and make your life easier. At the end of the day you need to help yourself before you can help others.

Recourses
Elluminate session 18th May, 2009
Class notes 2009 fundamentals of massage sustainability 21st may 2009 David McQuillan Class Lecturer

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