Blessed Bee Massage Therapy

I hope that the next time you are stressed, it’s because you’re choosing between a 60 minute and a 90 minute massage!

IN EX HAHA LELE!

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Why can gentle touch feel comforting to one person, neutral to another and uncomfortable to someone else?

Could persistent pain change not only how pain is experienced, but also how pleasant touch is interpreted?

Palamoutsi and Liberati bring together brain imaging and behavioural research to explore the relationship between persistent pain, affective touch and the insula.

The insula is involved in bringing together information about the body, emotion, attention, salience and pain. It also contributes to how we experience the pleasant and emotional qualities of touch. This makes it an important meeting point between what is happening to the body and what that experience means to the person.

Gentle moving touch can activate C tactile afferents, a group of sensory fibres associated with the affective qualities of touch. In many people this type of touch is experienced as pleasant, comforting or socially meaningful, although the response is never determined by the fibres alone.

The paper suggests that persistent pain may change how this information is processed. In some chronic pain populations, gentle touch is rated as less pleasant or rewarding. Brain activity during touch may also become more closely associated with pain, sensitivity and threat than with pleasure.

The authors describe this as a ‘hijacked insula’. Rather than touch automatically entering a pleasant sensory pathway, ongoing pain may influence how the brain interprets and gives meaning to that input.

Importantly, this does not appear to happen in the same way for everyone. Some people retain their ability to recognise and enjoy pleasant touch. The authors therefore propose two broad possibilities: touch may need to compete with pain related processing in some people, while in others it may be able to strengthen pleasant pathways that remain available.

This supports a more individual approach to hands on therapy. Pressure, speed, movement, location, predictability, consent and the relationship with the therapist may all influence how touch is received. The same input may feel reassuring on one day and unwelcome on another, particularly when pain, fatigue, stress or sensitivity has changed.

For therapists, the message is positive. Thoughtful touch can be explored collaboratively rather than applied according to a fixed assumption about what should feel good. We can listen, adjust and help each person discover the type of touch that feels comfortable and useful to them.

This remains a proposed model rather than proof that touch can directly ‘normalise’ the insula, and its personalised interventions still need clinical testing. Even so, it offers a valuable direction: understanding touch as adaptable sensory and emotional input, shaped by the person rather than guaranteed by the technique. 👐🧠

Palamoutsi, E.M. and Liberati, G. (2026) ‘The hijacked insula: A stratified model of affective touch modulation in chronic pain’, Journal of Neuropsychology, 20(3), pp. 659–694.
https://doi.org/10.1111/jnp.70062

Should I add this to the Blessed Bee service menu? 🤔😁

If you haven’t been in for a massage in awhile, I have plenty of time for you this week! Appointments available Tues, Thurs, Friday!

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