Massage Yakima triggers the release of endorphins, which can improve your mood and decrease stress. These effects can vary from person to person, but they are a very real benefit of massage.
Many other benefits of massage are less well-tested. But the ones that have been proven (like easing anxiety) are more than worth it.
Massage is the rubbing or kneading of the body’s soft tissues (such as muscle, skin, tendons and ligaments) using hands, fingers, elbows, forearms, knees or feet. The manipulation of these tissues increases blood circulation and helps remove waste products. This allows muscles and other soft tissues to relax and loosen. Massage also stimulates hormone production that promotes relaxation of the body and mind. The endorphins and serotonin released by massage can increase your mood, reducing stress and anxiety levels while increasing motivation and positive outlook.
Tight, knotted muscles can restrict your movement and cause pain. Massage decreases the tightness of these muscles by breaking down the adhesions between the muscle fibers. It is believed that the release of these adhesions also improves range of motion and flexibility in joints. Tight muscles can be a result of stress, injury or overuse and may develop a knot or trigger point. These are hard to reach areas of the muscle that will not release on their own and need to be manually released by the therapist.
A massage can help reduce this tightness by increasing the elasticity of the muscle, decreasing pain and inflammation, improving circulation and relaxing the muscles, tendons and ligaments. Massage also can help to reduce high muscle tone that can be a result of tension and/or anxiety.
Research has found that the physical touch of massage stimulates your body’s parasympathetic nervous system (the part of your brain responsible for rest and relaxation). This causes your heart rate to slow down, breathing to become more normal and blood pressure to decrease. At the same time your adrenergic system which is responsible for the fight or flight response, will begin to calm down and cortisol levels will decrease, allowing you to feel less stressed.
Although anecdotal evidence is overwhelming, taking a short period of time to relax can significantly decrease your feelings of stress. The light pressure of a massage stimulates the PSNS, helping to relieve the effects of a stressful day. This is particularly true if the massage is accompanied by a soothing environment and pleasant music.
Pain Relief
Pain reduction is the primary reason many people seek massage. The rubbing and kneading motions of massage relax muscles, tendons, ligaments and fascia. The pressure applied may also cause an immediate release of endorphins, the body’s natural painkillers. The intensity and duration of these effects varies from patient to patient, however massage has been shown to decrease both the frequency and severity of pain in patients with chronic muscle tension and chronic back problems.
When a muscle is injured the body tightens surrounding muscles to protect the area and to stop movement in order to allow the flow of blood to the damaged tissue. This can lead to a cycle of pain where the injured tissue gets poor circulation and swells up. Massage can break this cycle by reducing swelling and inflammation, increasing circulation and breaking down adhesions. It can also help by decreasing the guarding response where an injured muscle prevents movement in attempt to stop the movement of blood into the area.
The re-balancing of the nervous system is another effect of massage. Massage stimulates the parasympathetic nervous system which slows down the heart rate, lowers blood pressure and increases the secretion of melatonin which is the sleep hormone. Massage can also aid in promoting better quality and longer duration of sleep due to its calming and relaxing effects.
Many health care settings are now offering massage therapy to their patients as part of a comprehensive treatment plan. This includes physical therapists, chiropractors and orthopedic offices, as well as hospital outpatient departments. Massage can be helpful to patients with a wide variety of issues from stress and anxiety, to pain relief, to improving the overall functioning of the body and even to aid in recovery from injuries.
Organs can also benefit from massage as they share neurological pain pathways with muscles, bones and nerves. Massage can improve the function of an organ by stimulating the cutaneous nerves (responsible for skin sensation), proprioceptors which report joint position to the brain and mechanoreceptors which respond to pressure. By doing this, massage can help relieve a variety of health issues from gastrointestinal pain to menstrual cramps and even migraines.
Immune System Booster
The immune system is a complex machine that does a remarkable job of defending you from disease-causing microbes. But sometimes, it fails. When that happens, you get sick. And while researchers are studying ways to enhance the immune system, they still don’t know exactly how your body’s different kinds of immune cells work together.
A primary way massage helps is by improving blood and lymph fluid flow. Your heart pushes blood throughout your body with each beat, but the lymphatic system has no pump and relies on muscle movement to move lymph fluid (one of the waste clearance systems).
A one-hour massage lowers cortisol, a stress hormone, and increases serotonin, a brain chemical that reduces anxiety and depression and carries signals between nerves and muscles. It also decreases inflammation and increases the activity of genes that promote cell repair. Increasing these activities helps the body better fight off infection, and a more resilient immune system means you may be less susceptible to getting sick. The ad for Airborne, which sells popular herbal supplements advertised as immune boosters, makes some bold claims. But the company has been fined and changed its advertising to make it more clear that it does not treat, diagnose or cure any illness.
Better Sleep
If you struggle to sleep at night or suffer from insomnia, a massage may be able to help. Researchers have found that massage reduces the level of cortisol (a stress hormone), improves blood circulation and boosts levels of serotonin, which promotes feelings of relaxation. In addition, massage can ease anxiety and help you fall asleep faster.
People who don’t get enough quality sleep are at risk for many health problems, including heart disease and weight gain. They also tend to feel more stressed, anxious and depressed than those who get enough sleep. Insomnia is a common sleeping disorder that can be caused by stress, certain medical conditions or poor lifestyle habits such as drinking too much caffeine. Massage can have a positive effect on insomnia, helping you fall asleep faster and sleep better.
This is thought to be because the human touch and pressure of massage stimulates the vagus nerve, which is the major parasympathetic nerve in the body. When the vagus nerve is stimulated, it tells the body to relax. This results in lower blood pressure, a slower heart rate and relaxed facial muscles, as well as boosted gut function. It can also help tame inflammation, a key factor in insomnia.
It also increases the body’s production of melatonin, a chemical that helps regulate your sleep cycle or circadian rhythm. The more melatonin your body produces, the easier it is to fall asleep and stay asleep throughout the night. This is another reason why it’s important to schedule your massage before bedtime – your body will have more of the melatonin it needs to sleep.
While we know that massage can provide many benefits, it is not yet known exactly how it does so. Some experts believe it is because the body releases endorphins that cause you to feel good, which leads to a more relaxed state of mind and an improved mood. Others think that it is because the stress hormone cortisol is decreased while “feel good” chemicals are increased, leading to a more restful feeling. It’s likely a combination of these and other factors that explain why a massage is so effective for improving sleep.