|
Here are just a few benefits massage therapy can offer you in your life:
Health
Massage for health encompasses so many things including each of the other topics I will touch on below. Massage can offer a competitve edge for sports players or singers or
your everyday employee seeking more energy and focus. Through massage you can achieve an awareness of your body that I believe to be invaluable, an awareness of which muscles
are stressed or tight and which are relaxed. You can also gain a feeling of balance and being whole. Having this knowledge allows you to be nicer to your body by realizing
and then lessening its limits. Hydrotherapy adds to the healing benefits with the use of heat and ice. Ice pushes old blood out and as you warm up or add heat fresh blood
takes its place. Heat also offers relief to connective tissue disorders such as fibromyalgia, tendonitis and arthritis.
How can massage decrease your heart rate while increasing circulation? As your blood is pushed through your circulatory system your heart is able to slow down and pump more
effectively.
Another health benefit is increased range of motion through the breaking down of scar tissue along with the stretching of muscles. Increased lymphatic flow also improves your
whole body health. Your lymphatic system is integral to your body's health maintenance. Lymph flows through the body being pushed along by muscular movement and cleanses
toxins from the body. However, it has no pump to continue the flow. Although valves keep the flow from going backwards, movement of the body is required to continue the
process. Lymph can be manually pumped by your massage practitioner during a massage or by the brisk rubbing of a salt glow. This will help your body remove waste and
increase your immunity.
Improved Circulation
One aspect of massage that has amazing results is improved circulation because so many other
benefits come along with it. If no other proof existed for what massage can do for you, this is a
good enough reason to make it part your quest for health. Improved circulation brings about
return of blood to the heart and in turn the pumping of new blood throughout the body.
This results in more oxygen, nutrients, electrolytes, and antibodies being carried to your
muscles and vital organs and metabolic waste being removed more promptly.
Relaxation
One of the more popular benefits is relaxation. Who wants stress? How often do you have a
quiet time to just let your stress go? A soothing touch can calm you, help you fall asleep,
help your muscles forget how tight they are. Stress reduction is proven to prevent many diseases
Postural Alignment
Muscle tissue, along with other body tissues, gets out of alignment just as our bones do.
By releasing fascia, breaking down scar tissue and treating hypertoned muscles massages can
help your body open up. Its seems that most of what we do today pulls our bodies forward.
Reaching for the keyboard, the steering wheel, the vacuum, lifting children or pets, and so
on. We need something to pull us back up and out. Massage is that something. Whether you have your
spouse, friend, or child rub your shoulders or you come in for a professional treatment... get
a massage!
Energy Boost
This brings us right back to improving circulation. Massage gets your blood moving. Reduce your
fatigue as lactic acid is removed from your blood. Why would you need a massage to get your blood flowing? Even though your blood is constantly pumping throughout your body some veins and arteries may not be fully expanding and collapsing so that waste gets caught up in those areas. By manually pumping the blood through those vessels you are able to have full vasodialation which the main reason you want to drink extra water after a massage. When certain muscles get tight they can
pinch arteries causing reduced blood flow to the brain. The relaxing of these muscles can
allow your blood to flow more freely giving increased energy to each muscle as well as to your body as a whole.
Injury Treatment
Within the first couple days of injury an excess of tissue regrowth can occur. This may cause adhesions and or scar tissue. Immediately following an injury other muscles will compensate for weakened structures. With the aid of massage you can begin by addressing compensating muscles to reduce their fatigue and as time passes and bruising disappears. Scar tissue and adhesions can be broken down at you injury site. Something to remember in case of an injury is to always begin with ice! Apply ice immediately to the injured area to decrease swelling and possible tissue damage. Heat is used later as all signs of bruising and inflammation are gone. Get back to your old self or better by systematic massaging and use of ice and heat to both the injured and compensating muscle groups.
Increased Chiropractic Success
As your muscles are relaxed and shift into place your bones gain a better chance at returning
to their intended alignment. I believe that chiropractic work without massage will cause the
need for indefinite amounts of adjustments as the tight or displaced muscles pull the bones back
out of place. Although the pull on the bones will lessen each time, I believe there will be
a need for fewer adjustments when massage is added into the mix. I also believe that massage has much better treatment results when combined with chiropractic work.
|
