Over the past few weeks, I have written about the therapeutic benefits of massage therapy, specifically for infants and adolescents. Now I want to focus on the therapeutic benefits of massage therapy for all people, children and adults.
This entry will be about jaw pain and ways massage therapy can help combat it. (more…)
After lots of posts about the holidays, NFL stars, and ethics in massage therapy, I want to return to a subject that I think this blog does best: the therapeutic benefits of massage therapy.
After all, massage therapy’s benefits to people’s health are great. Thus far we have featured blogs about massage therapy and its ability to alleviate trigger points, symptoms of old age, allergies, eating disorders, stress, and the list goes on and on.
Today I want to write about neck pain and massage therapy’s effectiveness in treating it. (more…)
We already wrote about the medicinal benefits of aromatherapy, coupled with massage therapy, over a year ago (see post). As it says in that entry, aromatherapy and massage can be used (and has been clinically proven) to reduce stress levels and help the immune system.
But in that entry, we glossed over the fact that making massage oils and aromatherapy oils can be a very easy task. Follow the directions below, and start adding aromatherapy to your chair and table massage sessions. It is a great addition to the many benefits that massage therapy already offers. (more…)
In my last two entries about trigger points, I’ve discussed how they have been studied, some ways they are described clinically, and the type of pain they cause for the people who suffer from them. I’ve done this all while maintaining that there is still a lot unknown about trigger points, how they are defined, and the symptoms that they cause. However, that has not stopped massage therapists and others from attempting to discover and treat them, a noble cause considering the incredible amount of pain trigger points can cause (see previous entries as well as the ending paragraph of this entry). (more…)
I wrote last week about trigger points, how they are somewhat hard to define and that this lack of definition has led to many different theories, and an overall lack of consensus, as to how to locate and treat these problematic areas. Figuring out exactly what trigger points are and how to deal with them, definitively, is an extremely important endeavor given the large amount of impact trigger points can have on the general well-being of an individual. (more…)
Massage therapy has been demonstrated to help relieve chronic pain, stress, and anxiety, all in a non-invasive way. For this, it deserves praise as a profession. But there are, of course, limits to what massage can do. Often pain and discomfort is caused by something (such as an internal injury, certain chemical imbalances, etc.) that needs a more invasive approach, and in these cases massage therapy can be used as a supplementary treatment. However, there is also a lot of pain that goes unexplained in the medical world, and this might be due by an element that is difficult to define: trigger points.
Last week I wrote about the dramatic change in America’s population that is taking place right now, one in which one in five people will be over the age of 60 by 2020 – almost doubling the amount of the elderly that currently live in America!
As I wrote in concluding my entry last week, given this dramatic population shift, it would seem like a slam-dunk to say that there is a burgeoning field of geriatric massage in America. However, it is difficult to find a lot of data to substantiate this claim.
Massage has been proven to help relieve the effects of chronic pain, such as back pain, arthritis, and bursitis. And massage’s proven ability to increase circulation means that its other byproducts include an increase in balance and flexibility, improved posture, and improved wellness.
All this means one thing: The field of geriatric massage should be growing rapidly as the above-mentioned benefits are ideal for senior citizens. (more…)
Sniffles. Check. Trash can full of wet tissues. Check. Constant sneezing. Check. Allergy season is always around, dependent on where you live and what kind of allergens you react to. And this can make play, and even work, very tough to accomplish. After all, it’s difficult to focus on anything when you are constantly stopping to blow your nose. Fortunately, massage, especially from a trained massage therapist, can help relieve nasal congestion caused by allergies, allowing your sinuses – and yourself – to relax and breathe easy. (more…)
It has been well over a year since this blog came into existence, and in that time it has focused a lot on the health benefits of massage. Just for the sake of cohesion, here is a list of all the benefits written about in this blog (and some new ones not yet covered). This impressive list shows well the large amount of therapeutic benefits that massage provides.