Chronic muscle tension—such as persistent shoulder stiffness, neck tightness, or lower back discomfort—is fundamentally different from simple muscle fatigue or temporary muscle contraction. In most cases, it does not reflect muscles that are actively contracting, but rather a condition in which the body has learned to maintain tension over time.
This type of tension is sustained by systems outside conscious control, including neural reflex patterns, muscle sensory thresholds, blood flow and metabolic habits, and fascial adaptations. As a result, simply trying to “relax” rarely leads to lasting change.

The role—and limitation—of muscle relaxants and Botox
Muscle relaxants and botulinum toxin (Botox) are commonly used medical approaches to reduce muscle tension. Both work by suppressing or blocking the neural signals that trigger muscle contraction. When these signals are interrupted, calcium release is reduced, cross-bridges disengage, and muscles temporarily relax.
However, these interventions primarily turn off tension signals without altering the underlying muscle memory that created and sustains chronic tension. Neural reflex patterns, muscle spindle settings, fascial stiffness, and habitual circulation patterns remain unchanged. As a result, once the pharmacological effect wears off, the original tension pattern often returns.
In this sense, muscle relaxants and Botox are effective for temporary symptom control, but they do not reconstruct a bodily state in which chronic tension no longer arises.

Why a physical approach is essential
To create lasting change, the body must re-learn—at a physical level—that it is safe to remain relaxed, stable, and aligned without constant muscular guarding. This type of learning cannot be achieved through intention or chemical suppression alone.
Instead, it requires passive, low-intensity physical input that reaches deep reflex and sensory systems without triggering protective responses. Through direct bodily experience, tension patterns that have been stored across multiple layers of the system can gradually be released.

Resetting layered muscle memory
Long-standing chronic muscle tension is not simply something to be suppressed—it is something that must be physically reset. When the body experiences a state in which tension is no longer necessary, deeply ingrained muscle memory can be rewritten. Only through this kind of physical re-learning can chronic muscle tension change at its root.

The Overlooked Role of the Piriformis Muscle and Chronic Muscle-Tension Memory

Sciatica is a common condition characterized by pain, discomfort, or altered sensation radiating from the lower back or buttocks down the leg. While it is often associated with disc herniation or spinal stenosis, many people experience persistent sciatica even when medical imaging shows no clear structural cause.

At Japanese Reset Therapy® (JRT), sciatica is viewed from a different perspective. Rather than focusing solely on structural findings, JRT pays close attention to long-standing patterns of chronic muscle tension stored in the body as muscle-tension memory.

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The Connection Between Sciatica and the Piriformis Muscle

The sciatic nerve is the largest nerve in the human body, passing from the pelvis through the buttocks and down the back of the leg. Along this pathway lies the piriformis muscle, a small but deep muscle located within the pelvis.

When the piriformis muscle develops persistent tension, it can alter the environment surrounding the sciatic nerve. This does not necessarily mean direct nerve compression; instead, long-term tightness may contribute to reduced mobility of surrounding tissues, compromised circulation, and ongoing neural irritation.

In JRT’s experience, the piriformis muscle often becomes a key focal point in cases of stubborn or recurring sciatica. However, the core issue is rarely the muscle alone. The more significant factor is the chronic tension pattern that has been maintained and reinforced over time.

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Sciatica as a Result of Layered Muscle-Tension Memory

Japanese Reset Therapy® is built on the concept of Layered Muscle Memory. Over years—sometimes decades—repetitive postures, stress, compensatory movements, and injuries can create layers of unconscious muscle tension. These layers are maintained not only by the muscles themselves but also by the nervous system and habitual posture.

In the case of sciatica, tension often accumulates gradually around the pelvis, hips, and lower back. The piriformis muscle, due to its deep location and stabilizing role, frequently becomes part of this long-standing pattern. When tension is continuously reinforced, symptoms may persist even after rest, stretching, or conventional treatments.

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Why Massage and Stretching Often Provide Only Temporary Relief

Many people with sciatica experience short-term improvement from massage or stretching. While these approaches can be helpful, they often do not produce lasting change.

The reason is simple: relaxing a muscle does not automatically reset the neurological and postural patterns that keep the tension in place. In some cases, strong pressure or aggressive stretching may even trigger protective responses, causing the body to tighten again shortly afterward.

Without addressing the underlying tension memory, the piriformis and surrounding muscles tend to return to their familiar state—bringing symptoms back with them.

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The Japanese Reset Therapy® Approach

Japanese Reset Therapy® emphasizes a calm, progressive, and non-forceful approach. Instead of trying to correct posture or release muscles aggressively, JRT focuses on allowing the body to gradually rediscover a state of ease.

This process typically unfolds in stages:

• Superficial tension begins to soften
• Deeper layers gradually respond
• Coordination between muscles, posture, and the nervous system naturally reorganizes

As this process progresses, excessive tension around the pelvis and piriformis muscle often changes without direct force. Many people notice that sensations associated with sciatica shift in quality, intensity, or distribution over time.

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Addressing the Whole Pattern, Not Just the Pain

From the JRT perspective, sciatica is not viewed as an isolated problem. It is seen as a signal reflecting the body’s long-term adaptation to stress, posture, and movement habits.

For this reason, Japanese Reset Therapy® does not focus solely on the painful area. By working with the body as an integrated system, JRT aims to support more sustainable changes in posture, mobility, and comfort.

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For Those Who Have Tried Everything

If you have:

• Lived with sciatica for years
• Been told that “nothing is wrong” despite ongoing symptoms
• Experienced temporary relief that never lasts

it may not be a failure of your body—but a limitation of the approach used so far.

Japanese Reset Therapy® offers a framework for engaging with chronic muscle-tension memory, including the often-overlooked role of the piriformis muscle. By working quietly and progressively, it provides an alternative path for those seeking longer-term change.

Forward head posture is often blamed for neck and shoulder pain. But could this posture also affect how the brain works?

A recent study compared people with a forward head posture to those with a normal posture, focusing on how well the brain and muscles coordinate during balance tasks. Participants were asked to perform balance exercises of varying difficulty while researchers measured both brain activity and muscle responses.

The results showed that people with a forward head posture needed to recruit their brain more intensively to control their muscles when performing challenging balance tasks. In other words, the way you hold your head can directly increase the workload on your brain.

Researchers suggest that forward head posture may force the brain to “work overtime” to maintain balance, especially in demanding or unstable situations.

Posture, then, is not just about appearance—it also plays a key role in how efficiently the brain and body work together to keep us stable. Small daily adjustments may help reduce unnecessary strain on both the neck and the brain.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-025-06603-8

Most people think of posture problems, pain, or fatigue as isolated issues. But in reality, these symptoms often share one hidden root cause: chronic muscle tension and poor circulation.

Think of chronic symptoms as the tip of an iceberg—visible above the water. Below the surface lies the much larger root cause: chronic muscle tension compressing blood vessels, reducing circulation, and creating a cascade of health issues.

Massage, stretching, or posture devices can bring temporary relief, but they don’t reset the deeper neuromuscular patterns that keep tension locked in. That’s why symptoms often return within days.

Japanese Reset Therapy® focuses on releasing deep-seated tension, restoring circulation, and retraining the body’s natural ability to maintain balance. This approach not only improves posture but also supports prevention, vitality, and healthspan extension.

From young adulthood to senior years, prevention is the key. Resetting chronic tension early helps protect circulation, mobility, and long-term well-being across all life stages.

Don’t just manage symptoms—reset the root cause. Discover how Japanese Reset Therapy® can help you achieve better posture, better circulation, and a longer healthspan.

Chronic lower back pain won’t be mitigated by pressure massage. Why??
Doing a massage for the strained area of your body improves blood circulation for a short time, and it appears to mitigate the symptoms. However, the symptoms come back very soon or within a few days. The cause of symptoms doesn’t only come from chronic tension of your strained muscles. It is also caused by  the  entire tension balance in your body. (More) definitively, it comes from poor blood circulation in the choronically tense muscles.

Chronic tension in our muscles accumulates in our entire life circumstances such as long working hours, inappropriate use of the body, bad habits, stress, accumulated fatigue and so on.

Chronic muscular tension is observed in our posture. As for chronic lower back pain, we need to release  chronic tension especially in the muscles of our thighs, hamstrings, iliopsoas, muscles around pelvis properly as well as muscles in the lower back area.

What kind of treatment process is needed / necessary?
Based on our assumption that the most part of the chronic tension in the muscles is (also under) controlled by our brain, we need to reassure that the tension will be released from our brain.

Sometimes we do a massage, excessive stretching or even some exercise to strengthen our muscles to mitigate/alleviate the symptoms. However, these might aggravate the tension due to the brain’s defense mechanism.

We need to release the chronic tension of muscles from the surface of muscles to deeper inside to prevent “coming back” situation or additional tension. We are able to confirm the result of its muscular relaxation by observing the posture as well as the difference of our height before and after the treatment.

The height usually increases after taking 1st session. The increase varies from a few mm to a few cm, depending on the original height since discs in potential compression caused by chronic muscular tension are released/liberated slightly and the posture has improved, or due to one of the two reasons.

The chronic muscular tension can be released by our Japanese Reset Therapy, which has a very specific approach. It will take some time to release the muscular tension appropriately/significantly, however, as it has also taken long time for our body to accumulate it.

What  happens after releasing chronic muscular tension?
It is better to focus on releasing the chronic tension in your muscles in order to have better blood circulation than to focus on other factors as we believe symptom itself is an outcome of poor blood circulation due to chronic tension of the muscles.

The body realizes a better posture, which enables the organs to place themselves in a right position and to have enough space to functionalize well and prevents from creating excessive tension of local muscles. This entire approach leads to good health and wellbeing in our life.

Japanese Reset Therapy doesn’t replace any traditional medicine and the contents are from the experience of author, Takayuki Shigematsu.

https://gratitudesuisse.com

SwissJoho.com column article
Japanese Reset Therapist Takayuki Shigematsu

Q. Tell us about yourself briefly and about your work.

I worked in the areas of research and development of materials at Japanese companies, tech-nology research in Europe, and establishment and management of the research institution for medical-device related products in Switzerland for 25 years in total. I left the company in 2015 and founded a company which provides therapeutic service based on the Reset Therapy in January 2016.

Q. What led you to the “Reset Therapy”?
I stumbled upon the Reset Therapy when I was suffering from dysautonomia and stiff shoulders due to my stressful hard work. The symptoms are so severe that I had to take sick leave. None of the treatments brought dramatic improvement to the symptoms until I tried the Reset Therapy as my last hope. After several treatments, I became so much better that I could return to work.

Q. What is the reason that you started the therapy in Switzerland?
I understand that the basic concept of the Reset Therapy is an innovation of Japanese therapy as hand manipulation. I opened a Japanese Reset Therapy clinic thinking that it has to be me to start to expand it overseas, especially in a satisfactory environment such as Switzerland, as I have a deep understanding of the Reset Therapy and the experiences of accomplishing many missions overseas.

Q. What are the characteristics?
The Reset Therapy is to mitigate the tension of the muscles which have chronically become hard without pushing nor massaging strongly. When they are aggressively stimulated, the brain reacts in a protective fashion to it and the muscles become even harder afterwards.

We can ease the muscle tension by touching the muscles while paying attention to respiration gently swaying and stretching. When the muscles are reset, the circulation of blood and lymph improve, the pain is relieved, and the body alignment and posture become corrected. The body will finally be able to restore the balance by its natural healing ability, leading to the improvement of the whole body.

Q. For whom do you recommend this therapy?
I recommend this therapy for those with symptoms such as stiff shoulders, back and neck pains, headaches, knee pains, numbness, coldness, chronic fatigue, insomnia, dysautonomia, snoring, stuffy nose and so on as well as for those who feel down, who want to keep up the maintenance of the body, who want to prevent illness or injury, and who expect esthetic improvements from the synergetic effect.

The treatments are especially suitable for those who tend to work too hard juggling work and raising children, who spend the day sitting in the same posture for long hours, or whose me-tabolism is decreasing year by year which makes it more difficult to get rid of fatigue.

Q. After how many treatments can one usually feel the change?
Many people who particularly have been feeling unwell for a long time and have not fundamen-tally improved after having tried various methods feel the change even after the first treatment.

As a therapist, I strive to make my clients be able to feel the change by the third treatment in order to keep their motivation to continue the treatments.

Q How often should one receive the treatments for the best results?
I generally advise my clients to receive treatments once a week for the first 5 to 6 times, and afterwards once in 2-4 weeks depending on the progress of muscular relaxation. I give them advice how to keep the muscles relaxed.

Q. What kind of advice is it?
I tell them which parts of their muscles are tense, and give them advice about posture and how to sit. By measuring the changes in body temperature and posture before and after a treatment, I can show them the differences visually.

Q. What are the important things as a therapist ?
It is to be able to face clients in a relaxed mind with energy and to be able to observe them in detail. If I can recognize even a slightest change in their condition, it makes it possible for me to reflect it in the approach of the future treatments. In addition, I make sure that I understand the tension pattern of the muscles of the whole body, the distortion of the skeleton and the charac-teristics of the body in the early stage of the treatments.

Q. Do you have anything you want the clients to feel?
I would like them to be conscious of the improvements on their body. I believe that it is better to receive treatments in a relaxed condition while they are controlling own breathing. The range of movements of the joint becomes greater as the muscles get relaxed, and it makes it easier for them to feel even a slight change which leads to the motivation for them to continue improve-ment.

Q. Is there any feedback you hear often?
I hear pain relief, feeling a burst of energy due to ease of muscle tension, lighter body, and de-veloping a positive mindset.

The feedback I received from a staff member of SwissJoho.com who experienced the treatment at my clinic during this interview was “I felt the muscle tension deep inside my body during the treatment that I had never noticed before. As the treatment went on, I felt relaxed more and more so much so that I felt as if I were floating on the water.”

Q. What is the biggest challenge that you have faced so far? Also, how did you overcome that?
It is the authorization of my business and the renewal of my residency permit. I needed to con-firm if I could operate a clinic with a new concept of therapeutic service, and it was unclear whether I would be approved as self-employed. I was concerned because it was just after Swit-zerland introduced more restrictive immigration measures. I created my business plan and carefully explained it to the labor department of the canton (Service de l’emploi). If either had gotten re-jected, my business would not have come true.

Q. Do you have any belief, motto or philosophy?
The corporate philosophy is “to realize a hopeful world.” Personally, I always make sure that my work or activities contribute something to the society. And in the end, I believe that “health and well-being are the highest priority in our life.”

Q. Do you have any future vision or new plans?
I believe that there is a strong need for this therapeutic service, and I am planning on training therapists and eventually opening a second clinic.

Although the purpose of receiving the treatments for clients is improvements of their body, as a therapist, I give advice thinking that after their health condition improves, they are going to take a new step to reach their expectations, hopes and dreams that they had to refrain from due to their physical problems come true.

I believe that enjoying the process of challenging what you actually want to do and the possibili-ties is the ultimate joy of one’s life.

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Photograph and Interview: Yoriko Hess, Yuko Kamata
Edit: Yoriko Hess, Yuko Kamata

Mr. Shigematsu, thank you very much for your cooperation for this article. All of the staff mem-bers at SwissJoho.com wish you all the best for your continued success.

重松　崇之
Takayuki Shigematsu
Japanese Reset Therapist
Gratitude Suisse Sàrl
Rue de la Gare 9, 1820 Montreux, Switzerland

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Email: gratitudesuisse@gmail.com
Tel: + 41 79 132 16 16

The original Japanese article is below.
http://swissjoho.com/archives/21048

The article was published in Leman.

leman_201607

I was introduced by Grüezi as a Japanese in Switzerland.

Gruezi 20160413