Why Get Massage Therapy?
Massage restores vital energy, reduces stress and muscle tension and promotes a balanced body and state of mind. Here are just a few benefits massage therapy can offer you in your life.
Decrease anxiety
Increase muscle tone
Enhance Sleep Quality
Health
Massage for health encompasses so many things including each of the other topics we will touch on below. Massage can offer a competitive edge for athletes, aid in a speedy recovery after accidents or injury, or simply help those seeking more energy and focus. Through massage you can achieve an awareness of your body that we believe to be invaluable, an awareness of when muscles are stressed or tight and how to relax them. You can also gain a feeling of balance and being whole. Having this knowledge allows you to be nicer to your body by realizing and then lessening its limits. Hydrotherapy, (the alternating application of cold and hot compresses) adds to healing benefits. Ice pushes old blood out and as you warm up or add heat, fresh blood takes its place. Heat also offers relief to connective tissue disorders such as fibromyalgia, tendonitis and arthritis.
How can massage decrease your heart rate while increasing circulation? As your blood is pushed through your circulatory system your heart is able to slow down and pump more effectively.
Another health benefit is increased range of motion through the breaking down of scar tissue along with the stretching of muscles. In addition, the Increased lymphatic flow improves your whole body health. Your lymphatic system is integral to your body's health maintenance. Lymph flows through the body being pushed along by muscular movement and cleanses toxins from the body. However, it has no pump to continue the flow. Although valves keep the flow from going backwards, movement of the body is required to continue the process. Lymph can be manually pumped by your massage practitioner or by the brisk rubbing during a massage or sugar body scrub glow. This will help your body remove waste and increase your immunity.
Improved Circulation
Another benefit of massage that has amazing results is improved circulation. If no other proof existed for what massage can do for you, this is a good enough reason to make it part your quest for health. Improved circulation brings about return of blood to the heart and in turn the pumping of new blood throughout the body. This results in more oxygen, nutrients, electrolytes, and antibodies being carried to your muscles and vital organs and metabolic waste being removed more promptly.
Relaxation
One of the more popular benefits of massage therapy is relaxation. Who doesn’t have stress? How often do you have a quiet time to just let your stress go? A soothing touch can calm you, help you fall asleep, help your muscles forget how tight they are. Stress reduction is proven to prevent many diseases.
Postural Alignment
It seems that most of what we do today pulls our bodies forward. Reaching for the keyboard, the steering wheel, the vacuum, lifting children or pets, and so on. We need something to pull us back up and out. Massage is that something. Muscle tissue, along with other body tissues, get out of alignment just as our bones do. By releasing fascia, breaking down scar tissue and treating hyper toned muscles, massage can help your body open up. Whether you have your spouse, friend, or child rub your shoulders or you come in for a professional treatment... get a massage!
Energy Boost
This brings us right back to improving circulation. Massage gets your blood moving. Reduce your fatigue as lactic acid is removed from your blood. Why would you need a massage to get your blood flowing? Even though your blood is constantly pumping throughout your body some veins and arteries may not be fully expanding and collapsing which allows waste to get caught in those areas. By manually pumping the blood through those vessels your massage therapist is able to restore full vasodilatation (which is why we ask you to drink extra water after a massage). When certain muscles get tight they can reduce blood flow to the brain. The relaxing of these muscles can allow your blood to flow more freely giving increased energy to each muscle as well as to your body as a whole.
As with any injury or automobile accident, you should consult your doctor before receiving any massage therapy. Within the first couple days of injury an excess of tissue regrowth can occur. This may cause adhesions and or scar tissue if not treated with massage therapy as soon as possible. Immediately following an injury, other muscles will compensate for weakened structures. Massage therapy addresses the compensating muscles to reduce their fatigue. As time passes and bruising disappears, scar tissue and adhesions can be broken down at the injury site with deep tissue massage. Something to remember in case of an injury is to always begin with ice! Apply ice immediately to the injured area to decrease swelling and possible tissue damage. Heat is used later when all signs of bruising and inflammation are gone. Get back to your old self with systematic massage therapy and use of ice and heat to both the injured and compensating muscle groups.
Increased Chiropractic Success
As your muscles are relaxed through massage, your skeletal structure has a better chance of returning to its natural alignment with your chiropractic therapy and your muscles will "learn" to relax when at rest. Restoring and maintaining your skeletal alignment and muscle tone is a good addition to your wellness program.
Articles And Sites Of Interest
Please Note: Massage therapy specifically excludes diagnosis, prescription, manipulation or adjustments of the human skeletal structure, or any other service, procedure or therapy which requires a license to practice orthopedics, physical therapy, podiatry, chiropractic, osteopathy, psychotherapy, acupuncture, or any other profession or branch of medicine.
