How Massage Can Help You: Manage Stress, Manage Pain, Reconnect With Your Body, and Just Make You Feel Better

• 

Jessica Boggs, massage therapy program chair demonstrates massage therapy during a television show interview.

Minneapolis, Minn. (PRWEB) November 02, 2012

In my role as the massage program chair for Globe University's Madison-West campus I had the opportunity to ring in National Massage Therapy Awareness Week on the local NBC affiliate TV station, NBC 15. While we discussed that massage therapy is gaining momentum as a legitimate form of healthcare, we breezed past why someone should even get a massage. In this article, I present four strong reasons why you should consider the therapeutic effects of a good massage.

1. Stress management

For some reason, our society has decided that it’s a badge of honor to be overly busy. A little stress is good for us–it helps us survive–but when we constantly live in a state of “fight or flight,” the body breaks down. You know how you always seem to get sick right after a crazy work week? Well, that’s because this elevation of your body’s stress response suppresses your immune system.

Your digestive system is also sidelined, leading to stomach upset and poor dietary choices. If you let the stress continue, you’re setting yourself up for poor sleep, anxiety, muscle tension, headaches, teeth-grinding, weight gain, irritability, mental fogginess… not a pretty picture. Never mind that stress is a leading cause of big bad health problems, like heart disease and strokes.

Massage therapy cues up your parasympathetic nervous system, which is the “rest and digest” side of things. Get on the table regularly to keep your systems balanced and in check.

2. Pain management

Did you wake up with a crick in your neck? Overdo it on the soccer field this weekend? Suffer from chronic headaches? Back pain? Arthritis? Emerging research continues to suggest that massage therapy can have a huge impact on reducing pain and promoting healing with a variety of musculoskeletal conditions, and can be a great complement to your current health plan.

3. Body awareness

If you’re like me, you can often go hours in your day without realizing your shoulders are in your ears, or that you’re jutting your head forward to see your computer monitor. Massage helps you reconnect with your body, which in turn can lead to breaking poor posture habits. Having properly aligned posture makes you happy and pain free!

4. There’s nothing wrong with you

Prevention is the best medicine, right? To be sure, every so often I see a client who is well into his 80s. He still works full time as a professor, walks up eight flights of stairs to his office every day, does light calisthenics daily, and has no complaints of aches or pains. He makes it a priority to get a 90-minute massage weekly. Enough, said!

So what are you waiting for? Make an appointment today and see for yourself.

About Jessica Boggs, massage therapy program chair, Globe University, Madison, Wis., West campus

Jessica Boggs serves as the program chair for the massage therapy program at Globe University-Madison West. This quarter she is teaching Condition Specific Assessment Strategies, Hot Stone Massage/Spa Techniques, Massage Clinical Practicum, Sports Massage Clinic, and Swedish Massage. Along with her work at Globe, she is also the owner of Papercrane Massage Therapy in Madison and has been a massage therapist for eight years.

PDF Print