Practicing Champissage

As we learned in Part One, Champissage is a form of massage introduced to the West by Indian osteopath Narendra Mehta. It incorporates neck, shoulder and back massage along with head massage for a powerful therapy that promotes physical, mental and spiritual health.

Although Champissage can be practiced without oil, Mr. Mehta recommends using an Ayurvedic Hair Oil for extra conditioning. Any vegetable oil will do, but Mr. Mehta's favorite formula contains sandalwood, henna, brahmi, shikakai and amala herbs in a sesame oil base. According to Mr. Mehta, "sandalwood promotes hair growth, henna increases shine, amala prevents dandruff and brahmi promotes thickness." In addition, sesame oil contains phosophorous and calcium that benefits the hair shaft.

Mr. Mehta says massage is most effective when you receive it from someone else. However, self-massage can be very beneficial, as well. Some self-massage techniques include:

• Gently massaging the whole scalp in a circular motion with your thumbs and fingers
• Gently grasping your hair at the roots and tugging upward Squeezing the temples with your palms and making large circular movements
• Squeezing up and down the back of the neck
• Squeezing the shoulder muscles from the base of the neck outward

I was fortunate to experience Champissage directly from Mr. Mehta himself. The nice thing is that, unlike other massages, you can remain fully-clothed and sitting upright in a low-back chair. The massage alternated between being soothing and downright painful at times. Mr. Mehta explained that the purpose of massage is to manipulate the muscles in order to relieve tension and promote circulation. It can be painful when the masseur runs into knotted areas that need to be worked out. My most painful areas were in my shoulders, neck and at the base of my skull - all due, most likely, from too many hours sitting in front of the computer screen!

The scalp part of the massage was more stimulating than I had expected. I've had other scalp massages that were very soothing, but this really got my blood pumping. In fact, after a few minutes, I felt very warm from the increased circulation. Part of the massage included a technique called "Whole Hand Friction," which left my long hair tangled afterward. I suspect that the hair oil would come in handy during this part to lubricate the hair follicles and keep them from knotting.

Ayurvedic Hair Loss Treatments
To magnify the benefits of scalp massage, Mr. Mehta recommends the following treatments based on ancient Ayurvedic medicine:

• Drink an infusion of clivers herb - 1 oz. to 1 pint of water in 3-4 T. doses three times per day.
• Rub pure Aloe Vera Gel into the scalp, leave on overnight and shampoo out.
• Massage the scalp with juniper and rosemary essential oils to encourage hair growth.

For more information on Champissage, visit Mr. Mehta's Web site at www.indianchampissage.com
Back to Part One: Indian Head Massage