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Benefits of Routine Therapeutic Massage

massage therapist rubbing a clients back with forearm

Learn How Regular Massages Can Help You

Therapeutic massage offers many potential health benefits including increased blood flood and circulation, decreased tension in the muscles, and increased endorphin levels. These benefits are helpful in the healing process by bringing nutrition to muscles and easing anxiety to reduce pain and speed recovery. However, one session of therapeutic massage may not be enough. Routine therapeutic massages can have significant additional benefits.

Benefits Of Massage Therapy

Massage can combat the negative symptoms stress can cause in our lives. The physical changes massage brings to your body are not limited to increasing relaxation and decreasing anxiety, lowering your blood pressure, increasing circulation, improving recovery from injury, helping you to sleep better, and increasing your ability to concentrate. Learn more about the benefits of massage on your mind, body, and soul.

Massage Is Great For Athletes & Surgery Patients

Prevent Injury

Massage can be a very powerful asset for preventive care. By seeing a massage therapist regularly, you can prevent minor skeletomuscular injuries from becoming major problems that could lead to loss of mobility or flexibility later in life. Therapeutic massage specifically works to lengthen muscles that are stuck in a pattern of chronic shortening. If you’re worried about the cost of regular massage sessions, consider how costly prescription drugs, doctor visits, and surgeries would be. The cost of prevention may be better than the cost of a cure.

Reduce Recovery Time

Massage helps recovery from soft tissue injuries such as sprains and strains. Tissue growth and repair are accelerated by efficient circulation and appropriate stimulation, making massage a great option for injury recovery and treatment.

Make Your Workouts More Effective

Massage can increase endurance, speed up recovery time, control fatigue, and help people feel better when used as part of a regular health program. By helping rid your body of waste, massage enables more productive training, with longer, more effective workouts. Massage helps prepare for strenuous workouts and eliminates subsequent pains of the athlete at any level.

Make Surgery Recovery Easier

Massage reduces post-surgery adhesions and edema and can be used to reduce and realign scar tissue after healing has occurred. Massage can also improve range of motion and flexibility, aiding in the recovery process. For those with a restricted range of motion, massage provides exercise and stretching for atrophied muscles and reduces muscle shortening.

How Massage Can Improve Your Overall Health

Improve Posture

Poor posture often develops over time as a compensation related to joint and muscle discomfort. Routine therapeutic massage combats this by loosening muscles. Massage provides relaxation for joints, allowing the body to return to its natural position.

Promote Circulation & Lymphatic Flow

Massage increases lymph circulation. Lymph is a fluid that rids body tissues of impurities and waste, and is dependent on the squeezing effect of muscles. An active person has better lymph flow than an inactive person.

Therapeutic massages help blood, lymph, and other essential body fluids to flow throughout the body, affecting your largest organ: the skin! Blood carries oxygen and nutrients to organs and muscles within the body for optimal functioning. A regular massage routine could help lower blood pressure, potentially preventing chronic illnesses. Massage also stimulates the flow of lymph, the body’s natural defense system, against toxic invaders. For example, in breast cancer patients, massage has been shown to increase the cells that fight cancer.

Naturally Strengthen Your Immune System

Therapeutic massages can help boost your immune system by increasing the activity level of the body’s defensive cells. Routine massage treatments promote the body’s ability to naturally fight bacteria and infection. If you are always getting sick, or just tend to feel “under the weather” more than most people, a regular massage routine might help you bounce back.

Treat Migraine With Massage

Endorphins, the body’s natural painkiller, is used in chronic illness, injury, and recovery from surgery to control and relieve pain. Targeted massage techniques, including TMJ massage therapy, help alleviate muscle tension and reduce pressure associated with migraines. By focusing on the neck, shoulders, and jaw, targeted massage therapy can address common migraine triggers at the source.

Massage For Pregnant & Elderly Patients

Shorter, Easier Labor For Expecting Mothers

Massage can shorten labor for expectant mothers, as well as lessen the need for medication, reduce the chances for postpartum depression and anxiety, and shorten hospital stays. Targeting common discomforts like back pain, swelling, and fatigue, and promoting relaxation, pregnancy massages can help you feel more comfortable as your body adapts.

Massage Is Great For Older Adults

Massage knows no age limits. It works wonders on young, old, and in between. It can be helpful to the elderly who are looking for relief from the physical effects of aging which can include: thinner and drier skin, reduced tissue elasticity, loss of mobility, slower nervous system response, decreased bone mass, sleeplessness, constipation, and a less efficient immune system.

Can Massage Therapy Help Me?

Generally, people use massage for either general relaxation and wellbeing, or to address a specific complaint, such as pain or limited range of motion. Research suggests massage therapy may contribute to both goals.

Some of the general benefits of massage therapy may include:

Physical relaxation
Improved circulation, which nourishes cells and improves waste elimination
Relief for tight muscles (knots) and other aches and pains
Release of nerve compression (carpel tunnel, sciatica)
Greater flexibility and range of motion
Enhanced energy and vitality
Some clinical styles may help heal scar tissue as well as tendon, ligament, and muscle tears

What specific conditions can massage therapy help?

Massage therapy may help the body in many ways. Massage can relax muscle tissue, which may lead to decreased nerve compression, increased joint space, and range of motion. This may lead to reduced pain and improved function.

Massage therapy may also improve circulation, which enhances the delivery of oxygen and nutrients to muscle cells and helps remove waste products. These circulatory effects of massage may have value in the treatment of some inflammatory conditions, such as arthritis or edema (an excessive accumulation of fluid in body tissues, which may be reduced using manual lymph drainage).

Massage therapy is also thought to induce a relaxation response, which lowers the heart rate, respiratory rate, and blood pressure; boosts the immune system, and generally decreases the physical effects of stress.

These effects suggest that massage may be helpful for a wide range of conditions. Some of these are listed below.

Decreases pain and increases functioning in these conditions:	Helps treat and manage symptoms or complications of:	Other psychological, emotional, and physical benefits:
Carpal tunnel Sciatica Tension headaches Whiplash Scoliosis Torticollis Tendon and muscle tears Thoracic outlet syndrome Varicose veins Pregnancy-related back pain and other discomforts Myofascial pain Sore or overused muscles (prevents and treats) Muscle injury (offers rehabilitation)	Gout Rheumatoid arthritis Osteoarthritis Muscular dystrophies Raynaud’s Disease Diabetes Hypertension and congestive heart failure Reduces risk of chronic diseases, such as heart disease, diabetes autoimmune diseases	Improved mood Reduced anxiety Lower stress levels Lessening of depression Reduced anger and aggression Improved sleep patterns and decreased sleep disturbance Reduced fatigue Enhances immune system Improves athletic performance and enhances recovery

Can Massage Therapy Help My Low Back Pain?

For most of us, the answer is probably ‘yes’. Massage is non-invasive and very low risk for most people. In addition to physical benefits, certain types of massage can help psychologically through relaxation and increased production of ‘feel good’ chemicals. These chemicals (also known as endorphins) are naturally produced by the body and are helpful for people with both acute back problems and chronic back pain.

Types Of Back Problems Massage Can Help With

Back pain is a very broad statement. There are numerous types of back problems and many may benefit from massage therapy, including:

Treat Muscle strain in the lower back or upper back/neck

Most episodes of acute lower back pain are caused by muscle strain, such as from lifting a heavy object, a sudden movement or a fall. Low back pain can be very severe and last for several hours, several days or even a few weeks. When back muscles are strained or torn, the area around the muscles can become inflamed. The muscles in the back can spasm and cause both severe lower back pain and difficulty moving. The large upper back muscles are also prone to irritation, either because of lack of strength, or overuse injuries (such as repetitive motions). Upper back pain may also be due to a specific event, such as a muscle strain, sports injury, or auto accident. Therapeutic Massage can calm the spasm/irritation and improve range of motion.

Treatment For Spinal Osteoarthritis

Spinal arthritis is the breakdown of the cartilage between the aligning facet joints in the back portion of the spine. The facet joints become inflamed and progressive joint degeneration creates more frictional pain as bone rubs on bone. Muscles will tighten and become fatigued while trying to stabilize the spine. Massage therapy can help reduce osteoarthritis pain by improving circulation and reducing stress and muscle tension.

Fibromyalgia Relief

Fibromyalgia can affect people differently but is usually characterized by pain, stiffness, fatigue and/or non-restorative sleep. The patient typically feels both widespread pain and pain in specific “tender points” as evidenced by physical examination. Massage can target both the tender points and the more broadly distributed pain and stiffness. Relaxation massage goes a long way to helping reduce the symptoms of Fibromyalgia.

Book A Massage To Relieve Back Pain In Springfield, MO

Let the licensed massage therapists at Precision Wellness offer you relaxation and relief from back pain with our tailored, professional massages. With massage lengths ranging from 30 minutes to 2 hours, you can find the massage that fits your schedule and pocketbook. Book relief today at Precision Wellness!

Benefits of Sports Massage

The sports massage actually came from the Swedish massage technique. Geared specifically to the athlete, this massage focuses on muscles that have seen a large degree of stress and use, often to the point of overuse. Normally, these are muscles that have seen repetitive and aggressive movement as a part of the overall sport or competition.

Sports massage is now recognized by many in the training industry as an accepted component of an overall regimen of training and competition. This means the athlete can enhance pre-competition and reduce the required recovery period, which means a better and more intensive training session after a competition. Flexibility, a necessary component of any athletic completion, is also a part.

Many do not realize it, but sports massage has certain characteristics that make it ideal for athletes. The targeting of the muscle and tendons within the body is key for athletic training. A study in 2010 in America found athletes who had massages before and after strength training saw a definite decrease in soreness after activity.

There are several key elements to sports massage. To better understand each of these, let’s look at them separately.

Motion and Flexibility: Professional and superior athletes often overtrain and this leads to muscle rigidity. Sports massage can help relax overly tense muscles and provide additional flexibility. Used before a competition, it will relax the muscles for flexibility, improving performance.
Shortens Recovery Time: Exercise and competition is stressful on the body. This will lead to injury if proper precautions are not taken. Sports massages are ideal to help the body deal with this stress and injury prevention. A proper massage increases blood flow and lymph fluid, both assisting in the body’s natural healing process, speeding waste removal and general health improvement. Swelling and inflammation associated with physical activity is also reduced. Scar tissue, normal from a severe injury, can be lessened with massage.
Supply of Oxygen and Nutrients: Blood flow into muscles is vital to creating new tissue and increased strength and stamina. Massage increases blood flow for additional oxygen and nutrients.
Helps Eliminate By-Products of Exercise: Lactic and uric acids are natural by-products of exercise. Each can be lessened with blood and lymph flow in the body and increase the waste output by a sports massage.
Psychological Benefits: There is much to be said about psychology and sports. Many do not realize the value of a massage with sports and how a quality massage has more than just physical benefits. The body is only as strong as the mind, so having a strong mind that is relaxed and focused is a definite edge in highly competitive sports. A stressed athlete is not nearly as capable as one with a clear mind.
Reduces Pain: A body in pain is a sign of overworked muscles and is not healthy. Massage increases blood and lymph fluid flow, thereby speeding the injury rehabilitation process. A massage also helps with pain from spasms and cramps, common with elite athletic training.

Massage and Summertime

Many of us are now eagerly engaged in getting our gardens planted, our yards mowed, and our flower beds cleaned up from our long and very wet winter. We may also be experiencing new aches and pains from muscles and joints that haven’t been utilized in quite this way for many months. This is a good time to consider massage therapy to keep you going and to keep your muscles, bones, and connective tissue in good working condition. Here are some of the many benefits massage therapy provides.

Relieves stress, pain, pain induced anxiety, and muscle congestion
Improves range of motion increasing flexibility and muscle tone
Improves sleep patterns
Improves metabolic waste removal strengthening immune function
Improves alertness
Reduces swelling
Clears thinking
Encourages faster healing time
Relieves tension headaches
Provides a sense of well-being
Reduces fatigue
Supports white blood cell proliferation aiding our immune system
Reduces depression
Relives symptoms of nausea and vomiting for the cancer patient
Enhances body image

Equally important as the season changes is to maintain adequate hydration. Muscles and tissues require lots of fluids as well as good wholesome nutrition to function properly and to avoid spasms and sprains. When we work or exercise hard our muscles build up lactic acid. This is normal but often can become lodged within the tissues when spasms or strains occur. This creates those painful “knots” we often experience that can shorten our range of motion as well.

Massage therapy can release these pockets of lactic acid and return muscles to their optimal best functioning. If left unattended, lactic acid can become more toxic to the body. This causes an inflammatory response by the immune system and the pain cycle advances.

A professional massage therapist will apply the right kinds of techniques to muscles and joints to release tightness, cramping, spasms, and knots. Oftentimes you will only require what I call “regional massage” – working on shoulders, necks, arms, backs, or legs only rather than a whole-body massage. These shorter sessions are just as effective in providing the benefits of massage, feel great, and are affordable.

Keep yourself going great all summer, consider regional or full body massage to be your optimal best, and complete all your summertime tasks with ease and comfort.