We’ve written about the magic of massage therapy before, and how it helps mothers (and fathers) relieve tension, lower their blood pressure, and reduce their anxiety, both before birth and after.
But a new study published in the May 2010 edition of Women’s Health reveals perhaps the most startling conclusion of all: Massage therapy can actually help women during labor. (more…)
We’ve mentioned earlier how massage therapy has benefits for women who are pregnant, and we’ve even written about hospitals in Tennessee that offer massage therapy to women who are delivering or have delivered babies there, noting that massage therapy can ease tension, lower blood pressure, reduce anxiety, and promote quicker healing. But as the Institute of Integrative Healthcare Studies points out in an article published this May, “[w]omen with high-risk pregnancies are often deprived of bodywork, even though they can benefit the most.” (more…)
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…)
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…)
How much money will a client pay for a hands-free massage? Different massage modalities require different levels of exertion and forms of application by massage therapists. Often times a deeper, Swedish massage can involve a lot of force from a therapist’s hands, knuckles, and elbows. But some forms of massage therapy actually allow some therapists to avoid using their hands entirely.
Hot stone massage is one of these modalities. (more…)
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…)
If you have ever watched television coverage of a major cycling race, such as the Tour de France or Giro d’Italia, you have undoubtedly seen an array of motorcycles and cars huddled together, driving perilously close to the riders. These support vehicles carry a variety of supplies that are critical to keep the riders performing at their best. Some of the must-haves are what you might expect—water, food, extra tires and bicycles, but there is also one very important resource that one might not immediately think of—a massage therapist. (more…)