The Benefits of Frequent Massage and Bodywork

Help Yourself to Great Health:

What are the benefits of receiving massage treatments on a regular basis? Frequent massage treatments can help you with the following conditions listed below, and more:

• Alleviate low-back pain and improve range of motion.
• Enhance cold immunity by stimulating lymph flow – the body’s natural defense system.
• Ease medication dependence.
• Exercise and stretch weak, tight, or atrophied muscles.
• Help athletes of any level prepare for, and recover from, strenuous workouts.
• Improve the condition of the body’s largest organ – the skin.
• Increase joint flexibility.
• Lessen depression and anxiety.
• Promote tissue regeneration, reducing scar tissue and stretch marks.
• Flush oxygen and nutrients into tissues and vital organs, improving circulation.
• Reduce post-surgery adhesions and swelling.
• Reduce spasms and cramping.
• Relax and soften injured, tired, and over-used muscles.
• Release endorphins – amino acids that work as the body’s natural painkiller.
• Relieve migraine pain.

Increase the Health Benefits with Frequent Visits

Here’s the beauty of frequent bodywork: the benefits are compounded when massage is utilized as a frequent therapy. The more you get, the more it does for your health and overall wellbeing.
Taking part in this form of regularly scheduled self-care can play a huge part in how healthy you’ll be and how youthful you’ll remain with each passing year. Budgeting time and money for bodywork at consistent intervals is truly an investment in your health. Remember, just because massage feels like a pampering treat doesn’t mean it is any less therapeutic.
Consider massage appointments as a necessary part of your health and wellness plan. Work with your practitioner to establish a treatment schedule that best meets your needs, and activity level to maintain optimal health.

A Powerful Ally

There’s no denying the power of great bodywork. Regardless of the adjectives we assign to it (pampering, rejuvenating, therapeutic, healing) or the reasons we seek it out (a luxurious treat, stress relief, pain management, improved movement) massage therapy can be a very powerful ally in your healthcare regiment.
The incredible benefits of massage are doubly effective if taken in regular “doses”. Professionals at the Touch Research Institute at the University of Miami explain the more massage you get, the greater benefits you reap. Here’s why:
Experts estimate that upward of ninety percent of disease is stress related. Perhaps nothing ages us faster, internally and externally, then high levels of stress. While eliminating anxiety and pressure altogether in this fast pace world may be idealistic, massage can, without a doubt, help manage stress. This translates into:
• Decreased anxiety.
• Enhanced sleep quality.
• Greater personal energy.
• Improved concentration.
• Increased circulation.
• Reduced fatigue.
Furthermore, clients often report a sense of perspective and clarity after receiving a massage. The emotional balance that bodywork provides can often be just as vital, and valuable, as the more tangible physical benefits.

Profound Effects

In response to massage, specific physiological and chemical changes cascade throughout the body, with profound effects.
Research has shown enormous benefits of touch, which range from treating chronic diseases, neurological disorders, and injuries, to alleviating the tensions of modern lifestyles. Thankfully, the medical community is actively embracing bodywork and massage. Massage is becoming an integral part of hospice care, and neonatal intensive care units. Many hospitals are also incorporating on-site massage practitioners and even spas to treat post-surgery patients, or patients with pain as a part of the recovery process.

Photo Courtesy of ABMP