MANIPULATED WELLNESS

Taking our obsession with gut health to new depths, literally, visceral manipulation therapy (VMT) is a manual therapy of the internal organs, generally in the torso where our bodies hold emotional stress. “People often complain of neck pain, headaches or a knotted stomach, but often those muscular pains are the price you pay for what’s going on underneath,” says Cheng Poh Tan, a physiotherapist who practises VMT at Physio Fx in Sydney. Starting with a “listening technique” involving light touches to the head, the practitioner will

zone in on areas that need more attention. “Then we use soft manual forces to encourage mobility for the organ and the area around the organ, bring energy to the organ and encourage lymphatic drainage to give the whole organ more circulation,” explains Tan. It’s not painful, although not pleasurable either, but with fans saying it can assist digestive issues and restore emotional health, initial awkwardness is easy to push past.