Therapeutic massage is currently one of the fastest growing approaches to healthcare. One of the reasons for this gain in popularity is that not only does it relieve stress and promote relaxation, but research is documenting a vast number of physiological benefits as well. More and more people are looking to prevention and alternative solutions in healthcare instead of invasive procedures or medications.

Mental Benefits
Massage helps to create a calm state of alertness while reducing mental stress. It can create a calmer mind, and increases the capacity for clear thinking. It is relaxing and allows the body to release stored stress.

Physical Benefits
Massage improves circulation, improves joint flexibility, aids in healing scar tissue due to injury. It also releases chronic muscle tension and pain, reduces physical fatigue, releases muscle spasms and cramps. It also promotes deeper and easier breathing, reduces blood pressure, relieves tension related to headache and eye strain. Massage nourishes your skin, improves posture and body awareness.

Emotional Benefits
Massage creates a feeling of well being while reducing anxiety. It creates awareness of body-mind connection, enhances a sense of harmony, and increases energy flow at all levels.

Benefits of Massage. Massage is a complementary therapy that, when applied with skill, love and care, can evoke many beneficial changes within the body, mind, and spirit of the whole person. Massage is a powerful treatment precisely because it works on both the physical and psychological levels, and because it has the ability to relax and invigorate the person receiving it. While the techniques and strokes of massage can ease pain or tension from stiff and aching muscles or boost a sluggish circulation the nurturing touch of the hands on the body soothes away mental stress and restores emotional equilibrium at the same time.

As tensions dissolve there is an ensuing integration between the physical body and underlying emotions, which breaks the vicious cycle of tension between mind and body.

Massage allows time for the replenishment of innate resources of vital energy. This is particularly relevant in a modern world when stress is known to be the root cause of many serious physical and mental conditions. Stress is a natural factor of life, but if it is not discharged appropriately, or is suffered for a prolonged period of time, it robs the body of health and energy. Stress can also lower the natural defenses of the body's immune system and its ability to fight disease. When a person is constantly exposed to the adverse effects of stress, the situation can result in anxiety, depression, lethargy, insomnia, and panic attacks. Increasingly, both the medical profession and the public recognize the benefits of massage as a successful treatment of symptoms arising from stress.

The importance of Touch
Massage provides a safe and neutral situation in which to receive loving touch and stimulation of the skin senses, which is so important for emotional health and self esteem. Touch is fundamental to the development of a healthy human being, and touch deprivation in the early stages of life is known to inhibit the emotional and physical growth of a child. Yet the need to be touched in a caring way does not stop with the advent of adulthood. Unfortunately, in many societies, physical contact between people has become strictly limited to intimate relationships. The power of a loving touch, and its ability to heal, share empathy, and to comfort, has been largely forgotten. Massage should combine skilful techniques with loving touch, so that as the hands stroke the body, they unlock not only the physical tensions trapped in muscles, but also acknowledge, with complete acceptance, the essence of the person within. While massage itself is active, the underlying quality of the touch is one of stillness and calm, a sense of being totally present with that person. This is why massage is such a beneficial therapy, because it helps the person receiving it to feel safe enough to relax and unwind from the deepest parts of the mind.

Physiological Benefits
Massage benefits the entire physiological system. Soft, flowing strokes calm and soothe the nervous system, stimulate the sensory nerve-endings in the skin, and warm and loosen the superficial tissue. They integrate the different parts of the body, defining its shapes and contours to bring a renewed sense of body image and self-esteem. Deeper strokes remove tension from the muscles and increase suppleness and mobility. Massage assists the cardiovascular system by boosting blood circulation. Revitalizing strokes invigorate energy levels, and leave the skin with a healthy glow. Breathing deepens as the person becomes more relaxed and energized through massage, increasing the intake of oxygen into the body and the expulsion of carbon dioxide from the lungs. Calm hands enable the person to relax deeply and discharge pent-up feelings of stress. To touch or rub, and to caress and hold as a response to emotional or physical pain, is natural to people.

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 excessive scar tissue.
Reduces muscle spasms.
Provides greater joint flexibility and range of motion.
Enhances athletic performance; Treats injuries caused during sport 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.
Enhances the health and nourishment of skin.
Enhances the health and nourishment of skin.
Improves posture.
Strengthens the immune system.
Treats musculoskeletal problems.
Rehabilitation post operative.
Rehabilitation after injury.

Source: American Massage Therapy Association.

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.
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.
Increases awareness of mind-body connections.

Source: American Massage Therapy Association.