This just in from The New York Times: Massage therapy has been shown to decrease levels of hormones that cause stress and increase levels of hormones that cause contentment and well-being.
While we’ve written about the proven stress-busting abilities of massage therapy, as well as its ability to improve mood, it’s always nice when the leading source of information in the world backs you up. (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…)
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.
Our bodies have a network of organs, cells and tissues that work together to protect us from disease and infection. This network includes the tonsils, spleen, lymph nodes, bone marrow, and white blood cells, called lymphocytes. Without a properly functioning immune system, we are vulnerable to the effects of invading organisms and toxic substances. (more…)