What are the benefits of Remedial Massage? (Part 1)
8 Benefits of Remedial Massage
By Nicole Webb
I thought it would be a good idea to write about the awesome benefits of remedial massage in a blog post. I am one of the lucky people who fell into what they love to do. Never having had a massage before in my life, I took the chance to learn massage 6 months out of high school, thinking it would be an ‘in the meantime’ course. Just until I could afford to pay for what I really wanted to do. ( there was no fee help back then, at least not for the natural healing courses )
What I learned was that massage is AMAZING, and, put simply, I never looked back. I fell in love with not only how massage feels, but how I can help people with this amazing modality. I loved how I could hold space for clients, to enter that space where they get in touch with their inner beings through the power of massage. Corny I know, but it’s the truth.
20 years later, and I still love what I do. I thank my lucky stars every day.
It got me thinking that I need to go back to the basics, and talk about the reasons why it’s amazing. Hence this blog post is born. But I realised as I started it, it’s a forever growing list. This is why I have titled this post as “‘Part 1”.
So, you are looking for a massage, and not sure what type of massage to get? I can say firstly, that I will not put any type higher then another. All types, be it relaxation, sports, remedial or myotherapy are simply amazing. Not only do they each have amazing benefits unique to them, but they also have a 70% cross over of sharing the same benefits.
For the sake of understanding Remedial Massage, here are the benefits of Remedial Massage:
1. It increases blood flow, which in turn helps injuries
When you are injured, the site of injury is out of equilibrium. What this means is, its not in flow with the rest of the body. It needs more oxygen and nutrients then other areas, so that it can do its healing. If the area is ‘protecting’ itself, but the way of tensioning up, then there it little blood flow getting to the area.
Remedial massage benefits these injuries by increasing the blood flow that is needed for healing. With blood flow, comes red blood cells, and its these cells that carry the oxygen. A bit like a courier, it delivers what is required for the site that is injured so it can restore to normal.
2. Boosts immunity
Another benefit of remedial massage is that it can assist to boost your imminuty by the way of assisting nutrients to be cycled throughout your body. It also affects your Lymphatic system, which is hugely responsible for detoxifying your body for its general health. It assists to decrease the levels of cytokines which are the little guys responsible for inflammation. This goes hand in hand with increasing your lymphocytes, which are those white blood cells ‘soldiers’ that help defend our bodies from disease and infection.
So, gear up for the winter months, not only take your Vit C and D, but adding remedial massage into your care plan, can be great for warding of those cold and flus.
3. Decreases Stress levels
More and more research is coming out about the powerful benefit of massage helping to decrease your stress levels. The stress hormone, called cortisol, is shown to decrease with just one massage, and have lasting effects for days! These levels are even better when you have regular ‘dosage’ of massage, be it weekly, fortnightly or monthly.
4. Calms the mind
A Lot of my clients love their massages for this reason ( as do I ). The mind body loop is a powerful one, and if you can calm your body’s tension and stress ( done perfectly via the art of massage! ), your mind, by default, can only follow.
Massage is known to help trigger the release of endorphins, which research is showing that its one the things that are needed to help calm the mind. Endorphin release also interacts with the receptors in the brain that reduce the perception of pain in the body.
5. Decreases muscle tension
The decreasing of muscle tension and lengthening the muscle fibres is another one of the benefits of remedial massage. This is done by warming up the muscles using various muscle techniques such as pestriage, kneading, effleurage ( fancy names for massage strokes ), and then working on trigger points, adhesions and general tension within the muscle fibres. All of these are different types of ‘knots’ within the muscle belly. They restrict the muscle to work at its fullest capacity.
With remedial massage, the shining stars that are worked on are these entangled fibers. As the blood increases to the area, not only is oxygen attending the show, but heat becomes the by product – it literally warms the area. Tensions decrease, and muscle length is rebalanced and restored.
I need to say here though, that it takes two to tango for the best results. Committing to your rehab stretches and exercises that are prescribed by your practitioner will do your body wonders.
6. Improves sleep
Have you ever felt sleepy after a massage? Not only is Remedial massage ( massage in general really ) known to assist in the release of endorphins, but research also shows that it can directly influence the body’s production of melatonin. This is a hormone that is produced by the pineal gland, and it assists the body to fall asleep, thus improves sleep.
If you suffer from sleep issues, I highly recommend your massage to be an evening massage, or for night shift workers, close to your bedtime.
If you do suffer from sleep issues, please consider https://sleep.org.au/ for more information.
7. Helps to achieve a better posture
Notice how I didn’t say correct posture? I was mindful about that because in my whole career as a massage practitioner, I have only ever really seen three ‘correct’ postures. Correct, to me, means text book, and in my opinion, going my ‘text book’, is very limiting.
That said, I think we can all agree that our posture can be better. This day and age of the online world means we are somewhat plugged to a screen, either work related, for social media interaction, or just getting things done online (which, lets face it, is almost everything) This is just a small ( and yet large ) example of something that creates bad posture. Hunching over a screen, be it mobile, tablet or at the desk can cause over tight muscles in some muscle groups and over stretched in another, quite the opposite of what these muscle groups are designed for.
Remedial massage can assist your body to be in a better posture that will give your joints a better range of motion, and for your musculoskeletal system to stay in good stead for what each muscle group is intended for, which means, overall you will feel better.
8. Helps to stop the pain cycle
This is one of the biggest things remedial massage benefits. I am going to get science-y, but please bare with me…
Fibres that are designed to sense pain, are very slow travelers up the spinal cord and into the brain ( aka your control center ). With the remedial massage techniques applied, we directly affect other fibres that detect pressure and heat. These fibres travel up the spinal cord, and to your brain at a faster rate. Based on the theory called the Gate Controlling Theory, the idea is that the fibres that reach the brain first can ‘block’ the slower fibres from entering. In the case of pain, if fibres that travel faster, are activated, they will reach the brain first. Thus blocking the pain signal.
What this means is, if the brain does not receive pain messages, it wont send messages back to the area to ‘protect the area’, which is often seen as the tensing up of the area. This tensioning further acerbates the pain, therein a pain cycle is born.
Along with the help of the remedial massage, the body can do what it does naturally, heal itself get back into balance, without the cycle it found itself in.
So that about wraps up Part 1. There will be more to come as I do more blogging, so keep your eyes peeled.
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