"Learn to value yourself, which means: to fight for your happiness." -Ayn Rand, author and philosopher (1905-1982)

~ Updated 12/04/2007 ~

Benefits of Massage

Massage Makes a Healing Difference

For centuries in cultures around the world, people have recognized therapeutic massage as an important healing art. Stories and personal testimonies have always praised massage for its relaxing and rejuvenating effects. More recently, however, research has begun to document some of the specific beneficial effects of skilled therapeutic massage.

At NIM we do not claim that massage therapy can do all things for all people. Having served this profession for over 30 years, however, we know from experience that massage therapy is indeed a healing art.

ABMP

Consider findings reported by the American Massage Therapy Association (AMTA) and the Touch Research Institutes (TRI). The AMTA is a professional organization representing the field of massage therapy with over 45,000 members. The TRI, affiliated with the University of Miami, is dedicated to researching the effects of touch therapy.

The American Massage Therapy Association reports that massage therapy:

• promotes relaxation and alleviates the perception of pain and anxiety in cancer patients
• reduces post-traumatic headaches better than cold pack treatments
• stimulates the brain to produce endorphins
• was an effective treatment for providing long-lasting benefits for patients suffering from chronic low back pain.

The effectiveness of massage lies in a simple and direct strategy: working from the external, outer mechanisms of pain to the primary, root cause. Massage therapists utilize a holistic approach, focusing on the entire body system and its relationship to tissue. Their care isn't focused only on the site of pain.

The Touch Research Institutes report that massage therapy:

• facilitates weight gain in preterm infants
• reduces stress hormones
• alleviates depressive symptoms
• reduces pain
• improves immune function

For information about the general effects of massage therapy, or for information about how massage therapy can possibly affect a particular condition, check out the website of the AMTA or TRI and discuss your questions with a professional, credentialed massage therapists.

To find a professional massage therapist near you, click on Find a Massage Therapist.

Benefits of Massage (excerpted from holistic-online)

Research in massage therapy has been ongoing for more than 120 years.

Here are some reported benefits of massage:

Medical school students at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey-New Jersey Medical School who were massaged before an exam showed a significant decrease in anxiety and respiratory rates, as well as a significant increase in white blood cells and natural killer cell activity, suggesting a benefit to the immune system.

Preliminary results suggested cancer patients had less pain and anxiety after receiving therapeutic massage at the James Cancer Hospital and Research Institute in Columbus, Ohio.

Women who had experienced the recent death of a child were less depressed after receiving therapeutic massage, according to preliminary results of a study at the University of South Carolina.

Studies funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) have found massage beneficial in improving weight gain in HIV-exposed infants and facilitating recovery in patients who underwent abdominal surgery. At the University of Miami School of Medicine's Touch Research Institute, researchers have found that massage is helpful in decreasing blood pressure in people with hypertension, alleviating pain in migraine sufferers and improving alertness and performance in office workers.

An increasing number of research studies show massage reduces heart rate, lowers blood pressure, increases blood circulation and lymph flow, relaxes muscles, improves range of motion, and increases endorphins (enhancing medical treatment). Although therapeutic massage does not increase muscle strength, it can stimulate weak, inactive muscles and, thus, partially compensate for the lack of exercise and inactivity resulting from illness or injury. It also can hasten and lead to a more complete recovery from exercise or injury.

Research has verified that:

Office workers massaged regularly were more alert, performed better and were less stressed than those who weren't massaged.

Massage therapy decreased the effects of anxiety, tension, depression, pain, and itching in burn patients.

Abdominal surgery patients recovered more quickly after massage.

Premature infants who were massaged gained more weight and fared better than those who weren't.

Autistic children showed less erratic behavior after massage therapy.

 

According AMTA, massage helps both physically and mentally.

"Often times people are stressed in our culture. Stress-related disorders make up between 80-and-90 percent of the ailments that bring people to family-practice physicians. What they require is someone to listen, someone to touch them, someone to care. That does not exist in modern medicine.

One of the complaints heard frequently is that physicians don't touch their patients any more. Touch just isn't there. Years ago massage was a big part of nursing. There was so much care, so much touch, so much goodness conveyed through massage. Now nurses for the most part are as busy as physicians. They're writing charts, dealing with insurance notes, they're doing procedures and often there is no room for massage any more.

I believe massage therapy is absolutely key in the healing process not only in the hospital environment but because it relieves stress, it is obviously foundational in the healing process any time and anywhere."

Joan Borysenko - Massage Journal Interview, Fall 1999

Physical Benefits of Therapeutic Massage

Helps relieve stress and aids relaxation

Helps relieve muscle tension and stiffness

Alleviates discomfort during pregnancy

Fosters faster healing of strained muscles and sprained ligaments; reduces pain and swelling; reduces formation of excessive scar tissue

Reduces muscle spasms

Provides greater joint flexibility and range of motion

Enhances athletic performance; Treats injuries caused during sport or work

Promotes deeper and easier breathing

Improves circulation of blood and movement of lymph fluids

Reduces blood pressure

Helps relieve tension-related headaches and effects of eye-strain

Enhances the health and nourishment of skin

Improves posture

Strengthens the immune system

Treats musculoskeletal problems

Rehabilitation post operative

Rehabilitation after injury

(Source: AMTA)

Mental Benefits of Massage Therapy

Fosters peace of mind

Promotes a relaxed state of mental alertness

Helps relieve mental stress

Improves ability to monitor stress signals and respond appropriately

Enhances capacity for calm thinking and creativity

Emotional Benefits

Satisfies needs for caring nurturing touch

Fosters a feeling of well-being

Reduces levels of anxiety

Creates body awareness

Increases awareness of mind-body connection

(Source: AMTA)

What Types of Dysfunctions Respond To Clinical Massage? (excerpted from holistic-online)

The following dysfunctions respond to clinical massage.

Massage and Myofascial Pain and Dysfunction

Pain and/or physiological dysfunction originates from identifiable points within muscles and their fascial tissues. These locations are known as trigger points because they often trigger distant reactions.

Scientists have developed extensive maps of such referred pain. They have also identified nearly a hundred dysfunctions that can have myofascial trigger point origins. Some of these are: carpal tunnel syndrome, TMJ dysfunction, PMS, headache, diarrhea, dizziness, cardiac arrhythmia, indigestion, tennis elbow, urinary frequency, sinusitis, deafness, and blurred vision.

Massage and Fascial Plane Dysfunction

Fascia can be compared to the body's own version of "Saran Wrap." It covers most of the body in large, continuously connected sheets. Injury, postural patterns and chemical imbalances can cause these sheets to distort and bind to themselves and nearby tissues. Since all major blood vessels and nerves follow these fascial sheathes through the body, properly aligned and released fascia is vital to good health and the proper operation of the circulatory and nervous systems.

Massage and Neuromuscular Dysfunction

The smallest muscular activity requires that countless nerve impulses be sent to the muscle to be activated and to all of the adjoining and opposing muscles. For example, let us say that you want to flex your elbow. This requires that you must tighten the biceps and other associated muscles while simultaneously relaxing the triceps and other associated muscles. The combined nervous activity and muscular response must be precisely timed and exactly proportionate.

For more complex movements like rotating the head or taking a breath, the amount of coordinating activity increases exponentially. Unfortunately, the mechanism responsible for such coordination can break down and muscle fibers or whole muscles can actually lock in opposition to their normal activity.

Massage and Tonus System Dysfunction

When overused, muscles can lose their ability to understand how to relax. This is referred to as hypertonic. As a result, the muscles become overly tight. They tend to harbor myofascial trigger points, and cause stress on the muscles that oppose them and the joints that they cross.

Massage and Dermatomic and Spondylogenic Dysfunctions

If a nerve is pinched where it leaves the spine, or anywhere along its route, the area that nerve serves will feel pain. Many people have experienced such a problem with the sciatic nerve. It originates in the low back, but when pinched can make the knee, shin, or heel hurt. This is an example of dermatomic pain - literally translated - pain in an area of skin.

Massage and Spondylogenic Dysfunction

This occurs when the joints of the spine are compressed or otherwise impaired and cause their own special trigger point-type pain or dysfunction.

Both of these are successfully treated with clinical massage by loosening the muscles and other soft tissue that surrounds the affected joint or nerve.

Who Can Benefit From Clinical Massage Therapy? (Excerpted from holistic-online)

If you suffer from any of the following disorders, you may benefit by clinical massage:

Any chronic muscle or joint pain.

A known condition of referred pain, such as "when my neck gets tense I get a headache. "

Any recurring symptoms that seem to accompany or are precipitated by muscle lightness.

Tight muscles that are limiting the mobility of a joint.

Chronically fatigued muscles.

Low energy level, especially when accompanied by muscle aches and pains.

A recent muscle injury that generates pain or dysfunction in areas not seemingly involved in the injury

Any visceral dysfunction that tests negative for conventional causes.

Muscle pain that recurs in an area with no apparent new cause.

A tendency for pain to spread to other muscles whenever a simple strain or injury occurs

People find that therapeutic massage can help with a wide range of medical conditions, including:

Allergies

Anxiety

Arthritis (both osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis)

Asthma and bronchitis

Carpal tunnel syndrome

Chronic and acute pain

Circulatory problems

Depression

Digestive disorders, including spastic colon, constipation and diarrhea

Headache, especially when due to muscle tension

Gastrointestinal disorders (including spastic colon, colic and constipation)

Headache

Immune function disorders

Insomnia

Myofascial pain (a condition of the tissue connecting the muscles)

Premature infants

Reduced range of motion

Sinusitis

Sports injuries (including pulled or strained muscles and sprained ligaments)

Stress

Temporomandibular joint (TMJ) dysfunction

Massage for Pain Control (Excerpted from holistic-online)

Massage is a very effective technique for controlling pain. How does it work? There are number of ways massage may help in controlling pain.

Massage confuses the body's pain signals. 

Rubbing may interfere with pain signals' pathways to your brain, a process called the "gate control theory," according to experts. Pain impulses run toward the spinal cord and then up the cord and into the brain. It's only when they reach the brain that these impulses, are perceived as pain. When you rub, it sends other impulses along the same nerves. When all these impulses try to reach the brain through nerves, the nerves get clogged like a highway during morning rush hour. The result? Most of them won't reach the brain. And if the pain signals does not reach the brain, you won't feel pain. Thus massage works by 'closing the gate' that pain impulses have to pass through.

Massage also calls up the body's natural painkillers. 

It stimulates the release of endorphins, the morphine-like substances that the body manufactures, into the brain and nervous system.

Massage provides deep relaxation 

It relieves muscle tension, spasm, and stiffness. All of these contribute to pain. Experts suggest that tense muscles are usually deprived of oxygen, because the tightness reduces blood circulation to the area. Massage improves blood circulation, bringing with it what the muscle needs-oxygen and other forms of nourishment. The muscle then relaxes, and pain decreases.

Massage relieves mental stress and anxiety .

Massage is providing the benefit by the therapeutic value of touching that helps a person in pain. Research shows that even touch lasting for less than 1 second has the ability to make people feel better. Obviously, an hour-long touch provided by massage has to make you feel good!

What Types of Pain Can Massage Help?

Massage can help any pain originating from muscle tension: example - head, back, neck, and shoulder pain are all can benefit from massage. Releasing tightness and tension in muscles is the most obvious effect of a good massage.

Massage also is beneficial for relieving pain associated with arthritis, injuries, or even recent surgery.

   Learn

BENEFITS OF MASSAGE

(Excerpted from massagetherapy.com)

The Benefits of Massage: Is Bodywork Right For Me?

Massage provides relief to people of all ages—from infants to seniors—and from all walks of life—the weekend or competitive athlete to the home gardener or overstressed, overworked executive.

Treating the Body

Massage therapy addresses a variety of health conditions, the most prevalent being stress-related tension, which, experts believe, accounts for 80%-90% of disease. Massage has been proven beneficial in treating cancer-related fatigue, sleep disorders, high blood pressure, diabetes, low back pain, immunity suppression, spinal cord injury, autism, post-operative surgery, age-related disorders, infertility, eating disorders, smoking cessation, and depression, to name just a few. Here's why:

Bodywork offers a drug-free, non-invasive and humanistic approach based on the body's natural ability to heal itself. Massage has many physiological effects, such as:

• Increasing circulation, allowing the body to pump more oxygen and nutrients into tissues and vital organs.
• Stimulating the lymph system, the body's natural defense, against toxic invaders. For example, in breast cancer patients, massage has been shown to increase the cells that fight cancer.
• Relaxing and softening injured and overused muscles.
• Reducing spasms and cramping.
• Increasing joint flexibility.
• Reducing recovery time for strenuous workouts and eliminating subsequent pains of the athlete at any level.
• Releasing endorphins, the body's natural painkiller. For this reason, massage is being incorporated into treatment for chronic illness, injury and recovery from surgery to control and relieve pain.
• Reducing post-surgery adhesions and edema and reducing and realigning scar tissue after healing has occurred.
• Improving range of motion and decreasing discomfort for patients with low back pain.
• Relieving pain for migraine sufferers and decreasing the need for medication.
• Providing exercise and stretching for atrophied muscles and reducing shortening of the muscles for those with restricted range of motion.
• Contributing to shorter labor and reduced tearing for expectant mothers, as well as lessening the need for medication, minimizing depression and anxiety, and shortening hospital stays.

It's important to note that there are some conditions where massage is not recommended. For example, massage is contraindicated in people with:

• Certain forms of cancer
• Phlebitis
• Some cardiac problems
• Some skin conditions
• Infectious diseases

Your practitioner should ask you about your specific health conditions and determine if massage, bodywork or somatic therapies are a good idea. In some cases, the practitioner may need your doctor's permission before providing services.

Treating the Spirit

Massage also provides another therapeutic component largely absent in today's world: tactile stimulation, or, more simply, touch. In 1986, the Touch Research Institute at the University of Miami published groundbreaking research on the effects of massage on premature babies. The preterm babies who received massage therapy showed 47% greater weight gain and six-day shorter hospital stays than the infants who were not receiving massage. But is this study evidence of what loving touch can do spiritually, or rather what massage can do on a physiological level? Regardless, babies are not the only benefactors.

Many adults have reported cathartic experiences on the massage table. As a therapist carefully unwinds a client's stressed and tired muscles, the therapist may very well be unwinding the taut, pent-up emotions that one doesn't always have time to process in the middle of the day. And the feeling of being touched in a safe, caring, compassionate manner can be a very powerful experience, reminding the client that she or he is not alone in the world.

As studies continue to reveal the link between kinesiology and physical and emotional health, the effects of massage will be further documented. However, one need only experience a good massage to know it's beneficial to body and soul.