Speaking About Spikes

The recent buzz around the spike mat forced me to try it out myself. This spiny object was obviously more than welcome into the Swedish home, which is the conclusion I make from reading all those colourful comments about its miraculous effects on the net lately: “the best invention since the wheel”, “the best thing that ever happened to me”, “I would really recommend this mat to anyone”. It seems like a product couldn’t get any better response than this in a new market, where sales have drastically risen since the first introduction of the mat.

What’s the entire buzz about? I borrowed one from the Casall office, tried it for two days, got home from work, took a shower and put on some nice, soft linen clothes and finally lay down. The instructions were the simplest; lie on the mat for 10-20 minutes. You can choose whatever position suits you best, either on your back or on your front depending on what muscles you want to stimulate. You can also choose whether to lie directly on it, or with some soft cloth between the skin and the spikes to adjust the level of intensity.

The spike mat has a history that stretches back thousands of years in time. There are ancient Chinese writings telling us about the use of spikes or needles for treatments of the body and the psyche, and yoga freaks have referred to the use of spikes for a long time now. My grandfather use to always walk on these slippers with spikes and scratch his back every night with a spiky back scratcher. I never understood but it was fun to play with when I was younger.

Apparently, the spike mat isn’t a miraculous invention of our times, but for some reason it really became a hit, especially in Sweden, this year. Some dramatic, high-impact trends you just can’t explain the reasons for, simply everyone just seems to be in desperate need of a spike mat at the moment...the TIPPING point!

So, I lay down on this spiny thing for about 20 minutes. It’s hard to give an objective description of its effects, because I heavily believe in placebo effects, i.e. I feel what I believe myself to feel after all those great things I’ve heard about its great effects…yeah, you get the point. Anyways, first I didn’t feel that much, but after a couple of minutes I felt a wave of relaxation passing through my body. Placebo or not – doesn’t really matter. The only thing that actually matters is the fact that I liked it.

It is not scientifically proven that this mat would cure diseases, so if this is your one and only reason for getting one, please don’t believe in what they tell you. There’s no magic involved, more than the spikes stimulating your nerve endings and the production of our harmony hormone oxytocin. This hormone is produced when we have a nice massage, take a warm bath, listen to the music we like, etc. and it has the magical effect of making us relax. Synonymously, our intrinsic stress factor is reduced. So, speaking about magical spikes, why miss a nice and relatively cheap opportunity to quickly relax after a stressful day, force your muscles to calm down and have a few minutes only for yourself and your thoughts.

I wouldn’t say this is a revolutionary thing, and I still believe the wheel did more to humanity than this spike mat. However, I like it and will definitely get one myself.