My Shakti Mat Experience

Last year, Facebook advertising introduced me to this lovely thing called the  Shakti Mat and with it brought the first type of acupressure i’ve ever experienced. Have you heard of it?

Described as a wellbeing gift from India, the Shaki Mat is just a piece of foam, covered in fabric with lots of little plastic spikes sewn delicately on it, but when you lay on it, it’s designed to stimulate pressure points on your body which allows the flow of energy.  When used regularly it’s said to ease pain including headaches, migraines and sports injuries, ease anxiety, aid sleep and reduce blood pressure.

Now, although I am fadulous and I will try anything for my wellbeing,  this was not something that I would have gone for myself because I generally thought it was a product designed just for people who suffer with backache and fortunately I don’t.  If you were around in the 90’s you might remember a faze where people who had ‘bad backs’ or did a lot of driving would place this wooden bead cushion full length to sit on, on the driving seat of their cars.  It was very fashionable at the time and on asking the driver ‘ooh doesn’t that hurt?’ the reply would usually be ‘no it’s very comfortable and relaxing actually’.  This was acupressure although I didn’t know it at the time – but obviously something you could only experience whilst driving back then!

Since my husband does suffer a bit with his back, I encouraged him to purchase it and I was also curious about trying it out but I wasn’t  particularly suggesting that he went for the ‘Shakti’ brand, I was thinking more of the slightly cheaper options on the market.  However he was put incharge of making this purchase and he is the complete opposite to me when it comes to buying because where I tend to buy on a whim, he will do indepth research on whatever it is he is wanting. He will read reviews, it will often involve getting the tape measure out and he will weigh up all options carefully, whereas I tend to pick the cheapest and be done with it.  He will argue that cheaper options don’t last and sometimes, just sometimes, he’s right!

So after a couple of days doing his ‘research’, he decided on the Shatki Mat ‘Original’ in black, this being in between light intensity pressure and advanced intensity pressure.  Personally I would have gone for the low intensity pressure option in orange but he was in charge and it was supposed to be for his back after all.  There were a number of reasons why he had decided upon purchasing the Shakti brand and why the ‘research’ had been useful, the deal was clinched for him because the Shakti is designed for durability, using sustainable, organic material.  I was sold on them being hand made by local craftspeople in India who earn a living wage and have access to medical care as well as other things that we take for granted here.

The Shaki Mat arrived just before Christmas and when it was delivered we gathered in our kitchen to open it together with pride and full of anticipation. It felt like such an authentic sacred gift, that had been made with such care and skill, using the best materials and it had traveled from India to come and reside with us to bring us good health.  The marketing of the product had worked on us and if Marie Kondo had asked me if it ‘sparked Joy’ the answer would be absolutely yes and so earning the right to use up space in the house including the lovely cardboard box that it came in.

However, once it was fully out of the packaging though, I was quite surprised at how sharp the pressure points were – it really was a bed of nails (but in plastic) which reminded me of the circus acts where people actually pay to watch performers  lay on them to prove how brave they are, showing their stamina by enduring pain and suffering.  It was nothing like the retro car cushion beads!

So immediately I thought not a chance – i’m not laying on that thing, it’s going to hurt.  My husband however sprang into action, stripping off his top half, him being ‘the man’ who had to prove how macho he was by enduring pain and suffering for the greater good of his back.

Now according to the instructions that it came with, which can also be found on the Shakti Website, here’s a summary of the order of what happens when you use the Shakti Mat:

0-1 mins – it’s going to hurt and you want to get off.

1-2 mins – bloods flows into the area

2-4 mins – tingling sensation on skin starts

4-6 mins – tingling sensation moves to muscles

6-10 mins – body softens, warm feeling begins

10-20 mins – mind and body relaxes – healing begins

Was this what my husband had experienced?  Well to start with there were some grumbling noises from him, followed by a grimacing red face and not long after he got to the warm feeling bit he was ready to call it quits.

It turned out that he went on it twice and then quickly gave up!  This sounds familiar doesn’t it because it’s usually me who does this.  However, the tables had turned because during the days that followed, curiosity started getting the better of me and I decided to give it go myself. I placed it on the bed and cautiously laid upon it whilst still wearing a t-shirt and yes initially it was uncomfortable but then after a short while my body started to adjust to the feeling and I started to find it incredibly relaxing.

During the weeks that followed, I got into a routine of spending 20 minutes most nights doing this only to be told by my husband that I was doing it wrong because in his opinion I should be laying it flat on the floor like he had done so that my full body weight was compressed onto it instead of allowing the mattress to cushion the blow.  So I told him to shut up.  I was approaching this my way with baby steps instead of the ‘gung ho’ approach that he had taken but soon wavered on.  And besides, it’s very sharp – you have to treat it with some respect!

Over time, particularly during the cold dark winter months, after a day at work and a hot bath, I started combining a session on shakti whilst  listening to calming drumming sounds at the same time which are said to reduce cortisol levels in your body.  This helped me increase the session on the mat to 30 minutes and I often fell asleep.

The experience I got sometimes varied, on the odd occasion, I would really notice the spikes digging into my back and it did feel uncomfortable which was often solved by just moving slightly to adjust the position of my back so that my weight was more evenly distributed. There were only a couple of times where I abandoned a session because I couldn’t cope with the intensity or get into the right frame of mind to relax.

And get this – on the occasions where I’d even dared to go all out and lay on it ‘bareback’, the warm feeling that I experienced (after you have got over the initial pain) for me was just a treat.  If you have ever had the pleasure of having  a hot stone massage this is what it feels like and why I think I keep going back to it.  I literally can have the feeling of a hot stone massage regularly now if I want without waiting for someone to gift it to me via groupon and I don’t have to leave the house for it!

I also joined the facebook community group and started to get a picture of how other people were using it and how it was helping them.  Some didn’t find it useful for different reasons.  I also signed up to the Shakti mailing list and now receive a weekly ‘wellbeing wednesday’ email with information about other wellbeing fads which is right up my street.

It’s all going very well,  and you might be thinking this is all too good to be true, what’s the down side?  Well the only downside for me was that after a good few months of using it regularly, my body started getting used to the pressure, so much so that I couldn’t feel the tingling sensations anymore or even the initial 1-2 minute ouch moment at the start.  I’d literally had too much of a good thing and according to the FB community group, this was a problem for others too.  Some on the group resorted to buying the higher level of intensity mat to restore order, I didn’t, I just stop using it for a short while and then harmony was restored when I returned to it after a break.  I can now say that it was a good thing that husband didn’t opt for the low intensity mat in orange from the outset, I’d be using it as a scourer by now!

So all in all, i’m pretty impressed with myself that I have managed to stick at a wellbeing routine for once, so there must be something about this that is working for me.  Or it might just be that all you have to do with this mat is lay still on it, that’s it, it takes no effort at all to use, it’s not demanding, it doesn’t involve any maintenance, I don’t have to leave the house or make any small talk with a therapist whilst semi naked or feel like i’ve got to shave my legs for the occasion.

As for the husband, he got a bit ‘precious’ about his shakti mat and was a bit disgruntled that I had taken it over, even though he had almost certainly given up on it.  So he bought me my very own mat in pink and I’ll tell you about that story another time.  So now we have two in the house and when we both decide to give up on shaki (if I ever do) that’s two more things to go up in the loft with all the other stuff!