Sarah Fleming, Advanced Bowen Therapist
I’ve been treating clients with Bowen Therapy for 6 years on the Sunshine Coast and Brisbane. I love the diversity of problems it can help with gentle but powerful manipulations to restore balance and harmony in the body. With an extensive background in, Pilates coaching and fitness, I’ve developed a special interest in assisting people to reduce pain, recover from injury, correct movement patterns and posture to improve their everyday lives and sporting performance. I became fascinated and inspired to become a Bowen Therapist after experiencing quick and positive improvements from a series of Bowen treatments I tried when I was suffering a chronic and painful back injury.
What is Bowen Therapy?
Put simply, it’s a gentle, hands on soft tissue therapy for natural relief from pain, discomfort and stress in the body and is used to treat a large range of conditions. The benefits of Bowen Therapy can include pain management, reduced symptoms, deep relaxation, improved sleep, increased energy, improved posture, reduced stress levels, lymphatic drainage and increased flexibility around joints. Bowen Therapy is effective for all ages from newborns to the elderly and can be used in conjunction with other treatments such as physiotherapy. I also offer exercise sessions for injury rehabilitation, improved movement patterns and posture.
Bowen Therapy treatments can help the following and more:
- General back and neck pain, wry neck, sciatica, pregnancy back pain, restless legs.
- Headaches, migraines, anxiety, stress, deep relaxation, insomnia.
- Sports injuries and recovery from athletic training
- Adrenal fatigue, chronic fatigue
- Restricted joints, muscle tightness eg. Shoulder problems, Tennis/Golfers elbow, RSI.
- Knee, ankle problem and foot pain.
- Temporomandibular joint dysfunction.
- Juvenile bed wetting.
- Digestive problems including colic and constipation in babies.
- Menstrual and hormonal irregularities.
- Sinus, hayfever and asthma.
Please book a consultation through Vive Clinic or by calling/messaging me directly or via my Facebook page. Currently I am available at Vive Mondays, Fridays and Saturdays by request.
Delving Deeper into how Bowen Therapy works…
The gentle but purposeful Bowen moves are done at the level of the superficial and deep fascia (connective tissue), affecting nerves, muscles, tendons and ligaments. As Bowen Therapy calms the nervous system, the treatments stimulate a healing response, helping to reduce tissue tension, releasing adhesions in fascia and allowing musculoskeletal structures to reset into their optimal position, restoring balance and harmony in the body.
It differs from other modalities because it works though addressing the nervous system which is the alpha body system and as such all the other body systems depend on it. Bowen Therapy believes in the body’s innate ability to heal itself. The autonomic nervous system has two divisions being the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system and together they regulate the body’s unconscious actions. The initial relaxation Bowen moves switch the autonomic nervous system away from the stress, pain, fight, flight mode (sympathetic nervous system – fast and erratic brain waves) to the rest, recover, reset, renew, digest mode (parasympathetic nervous system – slower, flowing brain waves) to deeply relax the body and mind and encourage to healing.
The stretching and movement of fascia is key to the effectiveness of the Bowen moves as virtually all structures in the body are surrounded and encased by fascia. Fascia can develop blockages and adhesions restricting movement and creating pain. Freeing the fascia with Bowen Therapy increases ease of movement and glide between structures in the body. All structures in the body have sensory nerves to innervate them and to give feedback to the central nervous system about their state. So the direct fascial stretch of the Bowen moves on specific locations of the body create an electrical impulse or message to the central nervous system. The central nervous system responds by tapping into its previous healthy state or blueprint of its original best health to give corrective feedback like a reset effect. In addition, most Bowen moves overlap acupuncture points and meridians affecting the acupuncture pulses, in response creating a strong vibrational stimulus to internal organs.
When I am not practicing Bowen Therapy I teach Pilates Reformer classes at two studios and in my leisure time, I enjoy Latin dancing, bushwalking, making beautifully fragranced soy candles and spending time with family and my dogs.
To book with Sarah - Click Here.
