4 Ways Massage Therapy Can Benefit Your Life

Many think of massage therapy as a nice relaxing treat to have on a holiday or for a special occasion, and it very much is! However, regular massage therapy can be a restorative component of self-care, as well as have a huge impact on many areas of your life.

Here, I’ll outline a few different areas of your life that might benefit from regular massage therapy, backed by research:

1. Mental Health & Anxiety

Many studies have shown that massage can reduce stress, and that is no surprise: lying down on a comfortable massage table, in a warm, candle-lit room where you feel safe, can be relaxing even without the massage itself. That, paired with the accepting and attentive touch of a person you trust, can be a very healing experience. Research has demonstrated several times that levels of stress hormones can go down during a massage, returning the body to a state of relaxation. That, along with the release of endorphins from a pleasurable tactile experience can offer a much needed relief from tension, overthinking and emotional turmoil, or even numbness that can be a part of depression or trauma. Several studies have shown improvements in anxiety, depression, and PTSD after even just a month of regular massage. Returning to an embodied sense of self and experiencing your physical sensations can be a safe way of processing traumatic experiences, both life-changing ones and everyday ones like going to the dentist.

2. The Physical Effects of Stress

We all experience stress, in one way or another, and those stress hormones can affect our physical health. Issues such as insomnia, high blood pressure, skin conditions, and low immunity can be linked to sustained stress that isn’t broken up with rest and relaxation. Massage therapy offers a break from stress, but also works directly to counteract a lot of those physical effects of stress, on top of the mental ones. There are studies showing that massage therapy can reduce insomnia symptoms, increase healthy circulation thereby reducing blood pressure, and help your body fight infections by stimulating lymphatic flow and thus increasing your immune response, and more. Prolonged stress can also have an effect on muscular health and posture. Do you often feel like your neck and shoulders are tense? That could be from daily computer use, but it could also be from adopting a ‘brace’ position to help you prepare for an impending threat, even if the threat is stress itself. Massage actively works to correct habitual postures like bracing or structural imbalances in our spine, and also helps muscles that spend too long contracted and ready to fight to relax and take a moment to recover. Longer-term treatment can help prepare the body face new challenges and recover from stress faster afterwards, rather than holding onto it.

3. Chronic Pain and Health Conditions

A good, painless massage can relieve pain through many mechanisms such as releasing muscular tension, producing endorphins and creating proprioceptive confusion (meaning confusing the body with various non-painful signals). This can aid with short term pain, but even more significantly with chronic pain and other

conditions. Massage has been recommended for and can aid with: lower back pain, neck pain, fibromyalgia, headaches, arthritis, and various autoimmune conditions including diabetes, lupus and multiple sclerosis. People with chronic pain without a clear cause (or with a ‘common’ cause, such as menstrual pain) and autoimmune conditions are often let down by the medical system and its reductionistic and often invalidating and impersonal approach. While massage therapy cannot and should not aim to replace medical knowledge, it can complement and fill in what is lacking by the medical field: an offer of safety, acceptance, non-threatening and non-invasive physical touch, and validation that the pain is real because it affects you, even if the cause is uncertain.

4. Strengthening & Injury Rehabilitation

The benefits of any physical exercise can be boosted by a massage session following it. It can offer relief to sore muscles and help recover from overexertion and even skip that pesky delayed onset muscle soreness, leaving you able to progress with your training more efficiently, more effectively and more safely. Same applies to certain types of injury; Massage has been shown to support physical rehabilitation of many injuries alongside standard rehab. The mechanisms of massage aiding that recovery are similar to the above: massage helps reduce stress, increase circulation, improve posture, and decrease muscle tension, among other effects. These work together to increase the pace of recovery. Injuries that research has shown can be aided by regular supplementary massage include: muscle and tendon injuries, sprains, plantar fasciitis, and carpal tunnel syndrome.

These are just 4 ways that massage therapy can benefit your life, and if you try it for yourself you might find even more!

If you experience any of the issues above, I hope you start or continue your massage journey with Owlfinch Massage Therapy Bristol. Please don’t hesitate to book a massage with me [here] or contact me [here] if you have any questions I can answer.

Don’t forget certain injuries and chronic conditions will require your doctor’s permission before starting massage therapy.

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