Therapeutic Massage, How it Can Help You.
Does pain or restricted movement keep you from living the life you want? Sports injuries, household accidents, repetitive actions on the job, and tension from everyday stresses can all cause problems that, too often, take up permanent residence in our bodies.
Massage is a gentle therapy that can relieve pain and in combination with other appropriate health care measures, can help heal certain conditions and prevent their return. In some cases massage can reduce or eliminate the need for medication or surgery.
How will a massage feel?
Massage on normal tissue is almost always a pleasant sensation. Massage in the area of an injury or chronic pain may at first cause some discomfort which usually lessens noticeably in the first few minutes. Your massage therapist knows ways to minimize pain and will work carefully within what feels right to you. Always tell your massage therapist if you feel any discomfort so she or he can make adjustments.
Is massage always appropriate?
There are some conditions for which massage is not appropriate. Always tell your massage therapist if you have a medical problem, even a minor one. Also let your primary health care practitioner know you are receiving massage. Some conditions require close communication between your massage therapist and your doctor or other health practitioner. Your massage therapist will gladly provide regular progress reports.
Massage can help with…….
Stress
Massage is one of the best known antidotes for stress. Reducing stress gives you more energy, improves your outlook on life, and in the process reduces your likelihood of injury and illness. Massage can also relieve symptoms of conditions that are aggravated by anxiety such as asthma or insomnia. Because it relieves stress, massage is an excellent supportive therapy for people in psychological counseling or treatment for addiction.
Painful or tight muscles
Massage can relieve many types of muscle tightness, from a short-term muscle cramp to a habitually clenched jaw or tight shoulders. Some massage techniques release tension directly by stretching and kneading your muscles and their connective tissue coverings (called fascia). Other techniques work less directly, but quite powerfully, by stimulating your nervous system to allow your muscles to relax.
Delayed muscle soreness
After vigorous exercise, buildup of waste products as well as micro-traumas in your muscles can leave you feeling tired and sore. Massage increases circulation, which removes waste products and brings in nutrients to speed healing of the muscle tissue
Pain or tingling in your arms or legs
Muscles can become so contracted that they press on nerves to the arms, hands and legs, causing pain or tingling. If this happens, a massage to release muscle spasms in the shoulder or hip can bring relief.
Injuries
Massage can help heal injuries such as tendonitis that develop over time, as well as ligament sprains or muscle strains caused by an accident. Massage reduces inflammation by increasing circulation, which removes waste products and brings nutrition to injured cells. Certain massage techniques can limit scar formation in new injuries and can make scar tissue more pliable around old injuries.
Secondary Pain
Massage can relieve secondary pain that outlasts its original cause. Some examples are headaches from eyestrain, low back ache during pregnancy or the protective tensing of healthy muscles around an injury.
Prevention of New Injuries
By relieving chronic tension, massage can help prevent injuries that might be caused by stressing unbalanced muscle groups or by favoring or forcing a painful, restricted area.
Pain or Restriction in Joints
Besides releasing tight muscles that restrict joint movement, massage works directly on your joints to improve circulation, stimulate production of natural lubrication, and relieve pain from conditions such as osteoarthritis.
Posture
Massage releases restrictions in muscles, joints and surrounding fascia, freeing your body to return to a more natural posture. Massage can also relieve the contracted muscles and pain caused by abnormal spinal curvatures such as scoliosis.
The Effects of Forced Inactivity
There are many reasons you may be forced to limit physical activity including injury, surgery, paralysis or even normal aging. When this happens, massage can relieve your aches and pains and improve circulation to your skin and muscles. Even when an immobilized area cannot be massaged directly, the relaxation and increased circulation from a general massage can give you relief.
Fluid Retention
Massage increases your circulation which in turn drains tissues of excess fluid caused by recent injury, surgery or pregnancy.
Your Personal Plan
On your first visit, your massage therapist will ask you general health questions and review any referring practitioner’s recommendations. Your massage therapist will then assess your problem area to determine the best approach, perhaps by checking for restricted or painful movement, gently feeling for tenderness and looking at your posture.
Your massage therapist will then decide on a plan which will focus on your problem area along with other areas that may be related. Your therapist may recommend a series of massages. The appropriate frequency, duration and number of massage sessions for you will depend on your problem, its severity and how long you have had it, as well as your general health.
Self-care Techniques
Your greatest benefit from massage could be learning ways to release tension or help heal injuries outside of your massage sessions. Your massage therapist might share relaxing breathing techniques or gentle exercises to increase flexibility and teach you muscles more efficient movements. Other common techniques you might learn are how to release tension by contracting and releasing muscles, pressing “trigger points”, or using ice and heat.
The Benefits of Frequent Massage & Bodywork
Help Yourself to Health
What exactly are the benefits of receiving massage or bodywork treatments? Useful for all of conditions listed below and more.
Massage can:
- Alleviate pain and improve range of motion.
- Assist with shorter, easier labor for expectant mothers and shorten maternity hospital stays
- Ease medication dependence
- Enhance immunity by stimulating lymph flow, the body’s natural defense system.
- Exercise and stretch weak, tight or atrophied muscles.
- Help athletes of any level prepare for and recover from strenuous workouts.
- Increase joint flexibility.
- Lessen depression and anxiety.
- Improve the condition of the body’s largest organ, the skin.
- Promote tissue regeneration, reducing scar tissue and stretch marks.
- Pump oxygen and nutrients into tissues and vital organs, improving circulation.
- Reduce post-surgery adhesions and swelling.
- Reduce spasms and cramping.
- Relax and soften injured, tired and overused muscles.
- Release endorphins, the body’s natural painkiller.
- Relieve migraine pain
- Relieve back pain.
A Powerful Ally
There’s no denying the power of bodywork. Regardless of the adjectives we assign to it pampering, rejuvenating, and therapeutic or the reasons we seek it out for a luxurious treat, stress relief or pain management, massage therapy can be a power ally in the health care regimen.
The incredible benefits of massage are doubly powerful if taken in regular doses. Professionals at the Touch Research Institute at the University of Miami explain the more massage you get, the greater benefits you reap.
Experts estimate that upwards of ninety percent of disease is stress related. And perhaps nothing ages us faster, internally and externally than high stress. While eliminating anxiety and pressure altogether in this fast paced world may be idealistic, massage can, without a doubt help manage stress.
This translates into:
- Decreased anxiety
- Enhanced sleep quality
- Greater energy
- Improved concentration
- Increased circulation
- Reduced fatigue
Furthermore, clients often report a sense of perspective and clarity after receiving massage. The emotional balance bodywork provides can often be just as vital and valuable as the more tangible physical benefits.
Profound Effects
In response to massage, specific physiological and chemical changes cascade throughout the body, with profound effects.
Research shows that with massage:
- Arthritis suffers note fewer aches and less stiffness and pain.
- Asthmatic children show better pulmonary function and increased peak of air flow.
- Burn injury patients, report reduced pain, itching and anxiety.
- High blood pressure patients demonstrate lower diastolic blood pressure, anxiety and stress hormones.
- Premenstrual syndrome sufferers have decreased water retention and cramping.
- Preterm infants have improved weight gain.
Research continues to show the enormous benefits of touch, which range from treating chronic disease, neurological disorders, and injuries, to alleviating the tensions of modern lifestyles. Consequently, the medical community is actively embracing bodywork, and massage is becoming an integral part of hospice care and neonatal intensive care units. Many hospitals are also incorporating on-site practitioners and even spas to treat post-surgery or pain patients as part of the recovery process.
Increase the Benefits with Frequent Visits
Here’s the beauty of bodywork, its benefits are compounded when massage is utilized as a frequent therapy. The more you get, the more it does.
Taking part in this form of regularly-scheduled self-care can play a huge part in how healthy you’ll be and how youthful you’ll remain with each passing year.
Budgeting time and money for bodywork at consistent intervals is truly an investment in your health. And remember, just because massage feels like a pampering treat doesn’t mean it is any less therapeutic. Consider massage appointments a necessary piece of your health and wellness plan, and work with your practitioner to establish a treatment schedule that best meets your needs.