Massage is often seen as a luxury, something you occasionally treat yourself to, but actually, there are a lot of benefits to having regular massage treatment. Let’s take a look…
The Benefits of Massage
- Helps to reduce pain and muscle tightness
- Reduces stress
- Promotes relaxation
- Helps injury recovery
- Stimulates our happy hormones
- Improves the work of the immune system
Many people associate massage with being ‘sporty’. If you are active, training regularly and or competing, massage is a great way of helping your body recover between training sessions and after events. Improving circulation and increasing a muscle’s ability to absorb nutrients and remove waste products, allows for better recovery after exercising. That in turn can help with lowering the risk of injury due to having fatigued muscles. The adage ‘prevention is better than cure’ springs to mind.
Not being active
However, if you’re not as active, massage can still be extremely beneficial to you. It can promote relaxation by increasing blood flow and temperature and decreasing tension within the muscles. Many of us struggle to relax and so create ‘tight’ muscles within our bodies which can pull our joints into different positions; this can result in poor posture, pain and discomfort. Relaxing the tension will allow the body to move more freely and allow your body to maintain a better posture. Alongside mobility exercises and stretches, massage can be a fantastic way to feel more flexible, supple and calmer.
People who suffer from arthritis often find that massage is a good way to help manage their symptoms for the same reasons mentioned above. They can find it helps the joints to feel more mobile and less painful, making it easier to perform everyday tasks and keep active. As we often say as therapists, motion is lotion!
Massage treatment also stimulates the release of certain hormones – dopamine, serotonin, and oxytocin. These are three hormones within the body which are known as our ‘happy hormones’, helping us to feel positive and motivated. If we feel happier we are more likely to want to stay active and move more which then helps with the stiffness we have previously mentioned and reduces injury risk.
Research also suggests that massage treatments can help strengthen the body’s immune response, helping your body to fight off viruses. Massage helps to reduce stress which positively impacts the immune system, increasing the activity of white blood cells that fight diseases and increasing circulation and lymphatic flow, helping move nutrients and filter waste.
Conclusion
So, as you can see there are many reasons as to why you might benefit from ‘treating’ yourself to a massage!
At Walnut Grove we have a variety of different types of massage from sports massage (not just for the sports people amongst you), which is a firmer type of massage, specific to certain areas that need it eg. a hamstring injury or a shoulder issue, to Swedish massage which is a whole body holistic massage. Hot stone massage is also available, which uses heat to help relax the muscles further. If you are not sure what kind of massage would benefit you most, just give a call and someone will be pleased to help guide you to a new you!
