Integrated Bodytherapy Institute
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About Massage

The Benefits of Massage

Touch Research Institute, researchers have found that massage is helpful in decreasing blood pressure in people with hypertension, alleviating pain in migraine sufferers and improving alertness and performance in office workers.

An increasing number of research studies show massage reduces heart rate, lowers blood pressure, increases blood circulation and lymph flow, relaxes muscles, improves range of motion, and increases endorphins (which may enhance medical treatment). Although therapeutic massage does not increase muscle strength, it can stimulate weak, inactive muscles and, thus, partially compensate for the lack of exercise and inactivity resulting from illness or injury. It also can hasten and lead to a more complete recovery from exercise or injury.

Research has verified that

	Office workers massaged regularly were more alert, performed better and were less stressed than those who weren't massaged.
	Massage therapy decreased the effects of anxiety, tension, depression, pain, and itching in burn patients.
	Abdominal surgery patients recovered more quickly after massage.
	Premature infants who were massaged gained more weight and fared better than those who were not.
	Autistic children showed less erratic behavior after massage therapy.

According AMTA, massage helps both physically and mentally.

Physical Benefits of Therapeutic Massage

	Helps relieve stress and aids relaxation
	Helps relieve muscle tension and stiffness

Alleviates discomfort during pregnancy

	Fosters faster healing of strained muscles and sprained ligaments; reduces pain and swelling; reduces formation of scar tissue
	Reduces muscle spasms
	Provides greater joint flexibility and range of motion
	Enhances athletic performance; Helps to repair injuries caused during sports or work
	Promotes deeper and easier breathing
	Improves circulation of blood and movement of lymph fluids
	Reduces blood pressure
	Helps relieve tension-related headaches and effects of eye-strain
	promotes the health and nourishment of skin
	Improves posture
	Strengthens the immune system

	Treats musculoskeletal problems
	Rehabilitation - post operative
	Rehabilitation after injury

Mental Benefits of Massage Therapy

	Fosters peace of mind
	Promotes a relaxed state of mental alertness
	Helps relieve mental stress
	Improves ability to monitor stress signals and respond appropriately, before acute injury
	Enhances capacity for calm thinking and creativity
	Emotional Benefits
	Satisfies needs for caring nurturing touch
	Fosters a feeling of well-being
	Reduces levels of anxiety
	Creates body awareness

What Types of Dysfunctions Respond To Clinical Massage?

The following dysfunctions respond to clinical massage.

Massage and Myofascial Pain and Dysfunction

Pain and/or physiological dysfunction originates from identifiable points within muscles and their fascial tissues. These locations are known as trigger points because they often trigger distant reactions.

Scientists have developed extensive maps of such referred pain. They have also identified nearly a hundred dysfunctions that can have myofascial trigger point origins. Some of these are: carpal tunnel syndrome, TMJ dysfunction, PMS, headache, diarrhea, dizziness, cardiac arrhythmia, indigestion, tennis elbow, urinary frequency, sinusitis, deafness, and blurred vision.

Massage and Fascial Plane Dysfunction

Fascia can be compared to the body's own version of "Saran Wrap." It covers most of the body in large, continuously connected sheets. Injury, postural patterns and chemical imbalances can cause these sheets to distort and bind to themselves and nearby tissues. Since all major blood vessels and nerves follow these fascial sheathes through the body, properly aligned and released fascia is vital to good health and the proper operation of the circulatory and nervous systems.

Massage and Neuromuscular Dysfunction

The smallest muscular activity requires that countless nerve impulses be sent to the muscle to be activated and to all of the adjoining and opposing muscles. For example, let us say that you want to flex your elbow. This requires that you must tighten the biceps and other associated muscles while simultaneously relaxing the triceps and other associated muscles. The combined nervous activity and muscular response must be precisely timed and exactly proportionate.

For more complex movements like rotating the head or taking a breath, the amount of coordinating activity increases exponentially. Unfortunately, the mechanism responsible for such coordination can break down and muscle fibers or whole muscles can actually lock in opposition to their normal activity.

Massage and Tonus System Dysfunction

When overused, muscles can lose their ability to understand how to relax. This is referred to as hypertonic. As a result, the muscles become overly tight. They tend to harbor myofascial trigger points, and cause stress on the muscles that oppose them and the joints that they cross.

Massage and Dermatomic and Spondylogenic Dysfunctions

If a nerve is pinched where it leaves the spine, or anywhere along its route, the area that nerve serves will feel pain. Many people have experienced such a problem with the sciatic nerve. It originates in the low back, but when pinched can make the knee, shin, or heel hurt. This is an example of dermatomic pain - literally translated - pain in an area of skin.

Massage and Spondylogenic Dysfunction

This occurs when the joints of the spine are compressed or otherwise impaired and cause their own special trigger point-type pain or dysfunction.

Both of these are successfully treated with clinical massage by loosening the muscles and other soft tissue that surrounds the affected joint or nerve.

Who Can Benefit From Clinical Massage Therapy?

If you suffer from any of the following disorders, you may benefit from clinical massage:

	Any chronic muscle or joint pain.
	A known condition of referred pain, such as "when my neck gets tenses I get a headache. "
	Any recurring symptoms that seem to accompany or are precipitated by muscle lightness.
	Tight muscles that are limiting the mobility of a joint.
	Chronically fatigued muscles.
	Low energy level, especially when accompanied by muscle aches and pains.
	A recent muscle injury that generates pain or dysfunction in areas not seemingly involved in the injury
	Any visceral dysfunction that tests negative for conventional causes.
	Muscle pain that recurs in an area with no apparent new cause.
	A tendency for pain to spread to other muscles whenever a simple strain or injury occurs

People find that bodytherapy can help with a wide range of health conditions, including:

	Allergies
	Anxiety
	Arthritis (both osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis)
	Asthma and bronchitis
	Carpal tunnel syndrome
	Chronic and acute pain
	Circulatory problems
	Depression
	Digestive disorders, including spastic colon, constipation and diarrhea
	Headache, especially when due to muscle tension
	Gastrointestinal disorders (including spastic colon, colic and constipation)
	Headache
	Immune function disorders
	Insomnia
	Myofascial pain (a condition of the tissue connecting the muscles)
	Premature infants
	Reduced range of motion
	Sinusitis
	Sports injuries (including pulled or strained muscles and sprained ligaments)
	Stress
	Temporomandibular joint (TMJ) dysfunction
	Increases awareness of mind-body connection

Bodytherapy for Pain Control

Massage is a very effective technique for controlling pain.

How does it work? There are number of ways massage may help in controlling pain.

Massage confuses the body's pain signals 

Rubbing may interfere with pain signals' pathways to your brain, a process called the "gate control theory," according to experts. Pain impulses run toward the spinal cord and then up the cord and into the brain. It's only when they reach the brain that these impulses, are perceived as pain. When you rub, it sends other impulses along the same nerves. When all these impulses try to reach the brain through nerves, the nerves get clogged like a highway during morning rush hour. The result? Most of them won't reach the brain. And if the pain signals does not reach the brain, you won't feel pain. Thus massage works by 'closing the gate' that pain impulses have to pass through.

Massage also calls up the body's natural painkillers 

It stimulates the release of endorphins, the morphine-like substances that the body manufactures, into the brain and nervous system.

Massage provides deep relaxation 

It relieves muscle tension, spasm, and stiffness. All of these contribute to pain. Experts suggest that tense muscles are usually deprived of oxygen, because the tightness reduces blood circulation to the area. Massage improves blood circulation, bringing with it what the muscle needs-oxygen and other forms of nourishment. The muscle then relaxes, and pain decreases.

Massage relieves mental stress and anxiety.

Massage is providing the benefit by the therapeutic value of touching that helps a person in pain. Research shows that even touch lasting for less than 1 second has the ability to make people feel better. Obviously, an hour-long touch provided by massage has to make you feel good!

What Types of Pain Can Massage Help?

Massage can help any pain originating from muscle tension: example - head, back, neck, and shoulder pain are all can benefit from massage. Releasing tightness and tension in muscles is the most obvious effect of a good massage.

Massage also is beneficial for relieving pain associated with arthritis, injuries, or even recent surgery.