Continuing on with our blog’s often-explored theme of the benefits of massage therapy for mankind, today’s blog focuses on an element that affects nearly all humans and that massage therapy has a great track record of treating effectively. That element is: stress.
To start off, check out this article from The Massage Advancer, which obviously is a little biased in favor of massage therapy. (more…)
Last week I wrote about a study posted on the Touch Research Institute’s Web site about the effect massage therapy and touch can have on infants (massage therapy, according to the study, was shown to improve responsiveness among infants. Click to see my post).
This week I want to focus on a different study, also posted on the Touch Research Institute’s Web site, but available, for free, online as well (click here). This study focuses on massage therapy’s effectiveness in decreasing rates of aggression among adolescents.
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…)
DISCLAIMER: I know in my previous blog I said I would offer some solutions for personal and professional boundary transference, but I wanted to squeeze in a quick entry about Thanksgiving and the holidays first. Please look for the blog I promised some time next week. Happy Thanksgiving!
Turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, gravy, pie – and a whole mess of sides – can pretty much take up the entire Thanksgiving holiday weekend. First, there’s the time it takes to prepare all these dishes. Then there’s the devouring of them all. Then the recovery from the feast. Then the clean up. Then the non-stop football and leftovers.
With so much personal indulgence, it seems like a silly idea to mention the prospect of another indulgence, massage therapy, as part of your Thanksgiving routine. But there are some compelling reasons to do so. (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…)
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.
I do not think there is anyone who would be reading this blog and would not agree that stress is a major problem in modern society, and that massage is a great way to get rid of it. (more…)
As promised, I will continue outlining the ways to give self-massage on different parts of the body. Last week, I wrote about giving self-massage to your head, shoulders, and feet. This week I will write about self-massage for your hands and torso. I will end with some general guidelines for self-massage.
One of the most important things to do before giving – or receiving – a deep tissue massage is to determine which muscles need a deep tissue approach. It’s very rare that all muscles will need to have deep tissue massage and recipients can end up more beat up and tense after their massage if they do not identify which areas are to receive deep tissue massage, and which are to not. (more…)
I’ve been blogging recently about animal massage – even snake massage (my stomach still clenches when I think about that one!) and both entries touched briefly on “deep massage”. I think it’s important to understand what deep tissue massage actually is and where it fits in within the massage world. (more…)