What is Bowenwork?

Bowenwork® is a holistic, soft-tissue technique that relaxes and returns the body to a healing state. A Bowenwork practitioner applies precise moves or touches to specific locations over tendons, muscles and nerve bundles which deliver a signal to the nervous system. In response the body resets its various systems, bringing the person into balance and promoting healing and well-being. The body has an innate ability to heal itself, if the conditions are right.

Rather than focusing on a single complaint, Bowenwork addresses the entire body, by restoring balance via the autonomic nervous system (ANS). The ANS controls over 80% of bodily functions and is very susceptible to external stressors. Most people today live in a constant state of high stress and sympathetic ANS over-stimulation (fight, flight or freeze mode). Healing can occur only after the ANS shifts from sympathetic to parasympathetic dominance (rest, relax and repair mode). Bowenwork enables that shift.

During a session, clients usually go into deep relaxation or fall asleep, and loud peristalsis may be heard. Both of these changes indicate a profound release from stress and a shift towards parasympathetic influence which allows the body to heal and return to proper function when it is ready. This shift could explain, in part, the common observation that a Bowenwork session seems to reactivate the recovery process in situations where healing from trauma, sickness or surgery has stalled or reached a plateau.