After spending time with one of Papaya Playa Project’s passionate and skilled massage professionals, the body feels as if it’s floating an inch off the ground. One treatment in particular stands out, bringing an ancient practice to modern massage techniques — the Mayan abdominal massage.

A Mayan technique of abdominal bodywork, the treatment is an external, noninvasive manipulation that helps reposition internal organs that may have shifted, thereby restricting the flow of blood, lymph, nerve, and chi.

Before you enter your private, air conditioned cabana, you set an intention, bringing a certain energy into the session and keeping that with you throughout. After smelling the soothing copal, this intention brings a cohesiveness to the process, and is essential to the spiritual aspect of the massage.

The techniques bring together bodywork, traditional remedies, herbal knowledge, and spiritual healing to support the restoration of the body and being to a state of wholeness — where the chu’lel (a Maya word for life force energy) can flow freely. It is a treatment widely practiced among curanderos of Mexico, Belize, and Guatemala.

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Papaya Playa Project’s mayan abdominal massage techniques are founded on these ancient principles, and are best known for helping misalignment or congestion in the reproductive organs of both men and women. In addition, it also addresses many common digestive disorders.

By effectively alleviating tissue congestion and organ constriction, these techniques improve the vital flows of energy, blood, lymph and nerves in the abdomen. The technique can also release emotional and energetic tension which could be causing unnecessary stress on your body.

As a result, this massage assists in preventing the progression of chronic diseases whilst improving the body’s ability to self-repair and re-balance.

Through this traditional shedding of negative energies, one feels immediately better, allowing their body’s energy to flow throughout the day. And after experiencing it, one immediately understands that the Mayans were on to something when they started massaging tummies.

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