Something for the pain
I went to a doctor and guess what they told me…?
‘The way the brain can send messages to muscles is different when the brain or body is under stress’…you are very important. If you experience; pain such as, chronic pain; headaches, migraine. Or depression, back pain and sleep difficulties, you can keep seeing a doctor… or you can try to heal your mind and body naturally; with holistic remedies.
And then,
“Have you heard of Kinesiology?”
The relationship between the mind and body have long been speculated upon in the clinical context, as research over the years have increasingly found correlations between physiology, psychology and the shades of movement sciences that they produce. Holistic Kinesiology is very effective for a wide range of conditions. The modality; with great depth and breadth, is not always the absolute solution when it comes to treating more specific diagnoses, but can be extremely beneficial in many common issues:
- Learning difficulties,
- Peak performance,
- Emotional stability & stress,
- Sleep & energy problems,
- Lack of motivation,
- Chronic or acute pain,
- Backache and headaches,
- Muscular and nervous disorders,
- Intolerances and nutritional disorders,
- Depression and anxiety,
- Attention disorders,
- Fears or phobias,
- Sports injuries,
- Joint pain and so on.
‘Kinesiology uses feedback from your own body to gain a greater understanding of your problems and to guide the practitioner to the best solution for you’.
The line drawn between bodily physics, and its response to stimulus in the world, allows sports scientists, physicians and other related specialists to optimise movement and treat injuries preventatively.
What Are The Varying Niches in Kinesiology?
The Holistic Kinesiology Approach
Kinesiology, at its core, is a subset of physiology; how the body moves to gain feedback, develop understanding, and identify appropriate solutions to a client’s concerns.
This natural feedback process allows a kinesiologist to go beyond conscious or obvious symptoms to isolate underlying causal factors. The client guides the session through their own muscle responses, and solutions are tailored specifically to the individual, guided by the client’s own body–mind and subjective experience.
Holistic Kinesiology, in this case, is a broad form of Kinesiology that draws on many areas of complementary medicine. Like all natural therapies, it aims to improve health and wellbeing by stimulating the body’s own healing potential.
The Role of Accupressure
Born out of its background in Chinese medicine, Holistic Kinesiologists use acupressure extensively to support brain function. Holding specific acupoints, or ‘meridians’ in your body’s energy pathways according to traditional Chinese practice, stimulates the brain and nervous system to release calming and positive hormones. When a client performs a stressful or challenging task while holding these points, the brain begins to associate calmness with the task rather than stress, supporting improved performance.
This approach can be effective across a wide range of areas, including reading, writing, coordination, decision-making, speech, hearing, smell, touch, balance, memory, and emotional trauma.
Sports Training / Exercise Science:
There are also specialist areas of Kinesiology that combine aspects of sports medicine to focus on structural and pain-related concerns. These include Applied Kinesiology, Neural Organisation Technique, and Dynamic and Functional Structural Kinesiology.
Structural Kinesiology
Structural Kinesiology works with the physical body and neurological system in a holistic, trauma-informed way. It is an integrative approach that combines hands-on corrections, assessments, and protocols to support practitioners in working effectively with the physical body.
This approach blends functional neurology assessments and corrections with functional protocols to address posture, brain function, trauma, pain, and performance.
Biomechanics, as a specific area of study within these denominations, highlights the granular role of joints, ligaments, bones, muscles, and how their collective economy of output allow the body to achieve a particular level of force or movement.
Following this line of logic, we see where Kinesiology finds its value in the sports space; by understanding how the body’s interlays of muscles, joints and connective tissue collaborate with one another, we’re able to better measure how its performance can be improved – whether this is in force output in newtons, speed of employment in your fast twitch muscles, and more.
The area of study fundamentally explores exercise movement, a dynamic in the human condition that can be applied to many surprising spaces! From social policy design on ergonomic spaces and architecture, to medical fields looking to push the boundaries on how our bodies move in space, demystifying its mechanisms has the potential to enrich our understanding across its sub-niches.
Healthcare:
Being applied to the healthcare space is another no-brainer, when it comes to how the benefits of Kinesiology affect industries in wellbeing.
Whether the body is able to perform and engage certain actions can indicate a lot about its level of health and fitness – naturally pointing to solutions and exercises that can be recommended to address them, mentally and physically.
Referrals for consultation via diagnoses from your GP can fall under this umbrella; pointing patients to treatment with a dynamic application. Muscle monitoring, as a key practice in kinesiology discourse, explores the level of muscle output specifically in relation to specific stimuli you expose your patient to, whether physical or mental.
The result? Further insight into stressors that have an impact on a patient’s day to day, and a means of recentering your cognitive thought processes to better manage these responses, making your subsequent bodily responses conscious as a result.
Workplace & Corporate Wellness:
Beyond clinics and gyms, Kinesiology holds a lot of traction in the corporate world, where physical wellbeing can meet performance under pressure. In desk-bound environments, understanding posture, repetitive strain, and the effect of workflow on attention-demand in the body through Kinesiology can play a vital role in reducing fatigue and enhancing long-term productivity.
Applied movement analysis can inform everything from workstation ergonomics to workflow design, minimising injury and improving focus. Muscle monitoring techniques can also support stress management strategies, helping individuals become more attuned to their physical responses in high-demand settings.
The result involves workplaces that not only function better but feel better, with employees who are more conscious of their own physical rhythms and recovery needs. In this way, kinesiology offers a proactive, embodied approach to workplace wellness that prioritises balance, performance, and long-term sustainability.
Kinesiology can be as diverse and complex as the human body itself; the field’s study, after all, depends on the wealth of environments and contexts that make body movement possible.
Keen to explore more in the discipline? Check out our Kinesiology course today, for more on holistic practices and approaches to physical health.
Experience the many benefits of Kinesiology combined with the latest Mind Body Medicine techniques at our student clinic
