General
Massage has been used for centuries as a way to cure illness, prevent disease, balance the body systems, and facilitate physical, mental, and emotional healing. The Chinese were the first to record massage as a healing method while Egyptian pictographs demonstrate the use of reflexology in early civilization. Athletes in ancient Greece regularly received massage as part of their Olympic training regimens. Reiki, a healing energy technique, has been utilized for relaxation and healing for decades. Aromatherapy was practiced in Biblical times and Native American cultures around the world use massage for everything from facilitating childbirth to easing the passage for death. Recent research has proven the effectiveness of massage for many of our common ailments and has demonstrated the effectiveness of massage for all of the following:
- Reduce the frequency of headaches
- Create anti-depressive effects in depressed people
- Provide long-term reduction in chronic disease symptoms
- Improve quality of life in people living with chronic diseases
- Enhance positive well-being and reduce stress of older adults
- Boost mood, immune function, and relaxation
- Significantly improve mental energy and muscle pain in people with chronic musculoskeletal pain
- Reduce state anxiety, blood pressure, heart rate, trait anxiety, depression, and pain
- Reduce pain, anxiety, nausea, fatigue and depression in people with cancer
- Enhance mood and reduce stress in the spouses of people with cancer
- Ease carpal tunnel syndrome and increase grip strength
- Increase natural killer cells and dopamine levels in women with breast cancer
- Improve daily functioning, increase quality of sleep, and decrease stress-hormone levels in people with Parkinson’s disease
- Improve mood and sleep, decrease substance P (a neurotransmitter in the pain fiber system), decrease pain, fatigue and stiffness, improve physician assessments, and decrease the number of tender spots in people living with Fibromyalgia
- Decrease anxiety, depression, perceived pain, and reduce PMS symptoms including pain and water retention
- Improve sleep, decrease pain, depression and anxiety and improve trunk and pain flexion performance and function in chronic and sub-acute low back pain sufferers
- Increase range of motion and muscle strength while decreasing anxiety and depression in people with spinal-cord injuries
Touch is one of the first senses to develop in utero and one of the last to leave us. When injured, our first instinct is to touch or hold the area. It is no wonder that that massage has been proven to cause relief to so many pathologies, diseases, conditions, and disorders? Through touch, bodies can heal. Through healing and health, life can begin…again.