Benefits of Massage
Virtually everybody suffers from ‘stress’ these days. Whatever the cause, the experience gets lodged in the soft (myofascial) tissue; this is continuous over the entire body and so constriction in one location has consequences over a wide area: pain experienced in one location may require treatment in a different part of the body.
Affected tissue becomes more granular and hardened, restricting the free flow of fluids within and around it. As a rule, when tissue has been damaged it is incapable of resolving the damage on its own and the body reorganises itself to overcome the limitation as far as possible. Over time, unattended ‘insults’ result in observable changes that define our physicality.
Massage works on many levels, and it is important to consider this in relation to the whole person. Stress may be emotional, mental, or physical, but the whole of the bodymind is affected. Massage does much more than help tense muscles relax; some of the mental benefits are listed below:
• Fosters peace of mind, body-awareness, and a sense of the unitary ‘body-mind’
• Helps relieve mental stress
• Promotes a relaxed state of mental alertness
• Enhances capacity for calm thinking and creativity
• Reduces levels of anxiety
• Fosters a feeling of well-being.
Some of the physical benefits of massage are listed below:
• Helps relieve stress and aid relaxation
• Helps relieve muscle tension and stiffness
• 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
• Promotes deeper and easier breathing
• Reduces blood pressure
• Strengthens the immune system
• Improves circulation of blood and movement of lymph fluids
• Helps relieve tension-related headaches and effects of eye-strain
• Enhances the health and nourishment of skin
• Improves posture.
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