Most of you must agree with us as we say that there’s nothing more relaxing than a trip down to the spa for a massage! After all, the aromatic oils, the calm ambiance, and the therapist’s massage technique take away all the stress and leaves you rejuvenated, peaceful, and ready to take on anything life throws at you.
However, did you know that a massage session gives more than just relaxation? In this article, we enlist a few benefits you can avail of from massage therapy.
Chapter Overview
The Benefits
Massage therapy includes rubbing, pressing, and manipulating the muscles, skin, tendons, et. The technique has been practiced for thousands of years and continues to provide people several benefits. A few of these are:
It Improves Circulation
One of the benefits of massage therapy is that it improves circulation in the body. Improved circulation helps in bringing tense, stiff, and damaged muscles abundant supply of blood to promote rejuvenation and healing.
Moreover, the pressure from the hands moves the blood throughout the body, and stiff muscles and tissues. Furthermore, the twisting, squeezing, and pulling action from the hands can remove lactic acid from muscles. This, in turn, improves lymphatic drainage and promotes metabolic waste drainage from the body.
It May Reduce Pain
According to WebMD, regular massage therapy may show a reduction in back pain and some types of headaches, such as migraines. They describe a few studies that show the effectiveness of massage therapy in reducing pain and improving sleep.
Releases Feel-Good Hormones
While massage therapy assists in physical healing and rejuvenation of the muscles, it also helps improve a person’s emotional state as well. The improved circulation as a result of added pressure from hands, twisting, pulling, rubbing, and pressing releases the ‘feel-good’ hormones Endorphins. Endorphins are the body’s natural pain killer and release other hormones, serotonin, and dopamine. All of these together maintain a healthy body, both at the physical and emotional levels.
May Help Improve Your Posture
Do you spend most of your time hunched over a laptop or smartphone? Has it led to a bad posture and increased pain in the back and neck? A regular massage session can help alleviate the pain and improve your posture!
As the muscles relax due to a massage session, the lousy posture can loosen and fall back to its organic condition. Moreover, with regular massage sessions, your muscles and joints will have increased flexibility, freedom, and range in motion. Therefore, as your tale massage therapy, it can help your body to ‘unlearn’ the bad postures and fall in its natural, pain-free one.
Strengthens Your Immune System
Massage therapy, combined with a healthy, balanced diet, and regular exercise, may strengthen your immune system.
As you receive regular massage sessions, your body releases all the physical and emotional stress. As stress can wreak havoc on your health and immune system, de-stressing with massage therapy can improve your body’s immunity. Resultantly, the body can fight pathogens, illnesses, and bacteria.
Helps You Relax
When you are stressed, your body can physically tense up. This increased stress and tension causes the release of the stress hormone Cortisol. Cortisol can lead to insomnia, weight gain, headaches, and digestive issues. With massage therapy, you can release all the tension and decrease the levels of Cortisol in the body. This makes the body go into recovery or rejuvenation mode. Therefore, with massage sessions, you can relax, reduce cortisol levels in the body, improve your mood, and have a pleasant outlook on life.
Helps With Sports Injuries
For athletes, it is common to suffer from injuries. These injuries only get better with rest and proper care. However, according to MayoClinic, massage therapy can also improve pain and muscle soreness from injuries sustained from sports. The improved blood circulation and flexibility ensures that the injured athlete recovers quickly.
Conclusion
Massage therapy has various benefits in terms of physical and emotional health. It can improve circulation in the body, reduce pain, improves the release of happy hormones, improves posture, strengthens the immune system, helps you relax, and helps healing after a sports injury.
We hope this article increased your knowledge regarding the many benefits of massage therapy, and that you will use this knowledge to get the best out of this practice.