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. However, if you are one of those people, please let me refer you to some introductory resources from the Web for you to look at:
– Go to Google.com
– Type in “massage” + “Stress”
– Read about how massage has been proven to combat stress (and much more) from sites such as:
o The Mayo Clinic
o WebMD
o The Touch Institute
o And many more credible, trusted organizations
While you are at the last source I mentioned – The Touch Institute – navigate a couple of links into the Web page (click “TRI Research”, then “Adult Massage Studies”) and you’ll see (listed second) a paper from the International Journal of Neuroscience that studied the effects of massage on stress and anxiety.
Not only did this study demonstrate that massage can reduce stress, but it also gave specific examples of the tangible benefits that come to people when they are relieved of the burden of stress.
For the study, one group of participants was given chair massage two times per week over a five-week period. Another group of participants was made to sit down in a massage chair, but was not given massage. Instead they were simply told to “relax” on their own and given an amount of time in which they could relax. Before the study began all participants were given an Electroencephalography (EEG) to monitor their brain patterns.
The EEGs conducted after the five-week period showed that while both groups had increased levels of relaxation, the group that received massage had brain activity that showed enhanced alertness, lower levels of anxiety, and lower levels of job stress. The control group that did not receive the massage either did not experience these benefits, or experienced them on a lower level.
As for actual, tangible manifestations of the massages’ effectiveness: The study had all participants do a series of math computations, both before and after the five-week period; of course, the participants who had received massage all showed improved accuracy and speed on their math problems, while the control group did not.