You care for everyone around you, but you just don’t have the time to spend on yourself. Spoiler alert: You can always find time to do things that are important to you. It’s a brand-new year, so go ahead—make a resolution to carve out a little “me time” to do something that will tend to your body, mind and spirit—massage. Here are 10 reasons why you need to regularly schedule time to get a massage.
1. It’s a Healthy Way to Take Care of Yourself
Touch is a basic human need. If a child is deprived of human contact, they fail to thrive and have issues with social attachments. Isolated elders have shorter lifespans. Intentional therapeutic touch is even more powerful and is a loving gift you need to honor yourself with more frequently.
2. It’s Good for Your Body
When it comes to the physiological benefits you can reap from massage, researchers are constantly adding more value to that list. A few of the most impactful massage benefits that research has proven out include:
• Improved immune system function
• Improved muscle and tendon recovery
• Improved sleep, and reduced fatigue in cancer patients
• Increased pain relief without the side effects of narcotics
3. It’s Good for Your Mind
While your body is getting its therapeutic attention, your mind has a chance to go quiet—something that doesn’t come easily in today’s world—and you get to double up the therapeutic benefits. For mental and emotional well-being, massage has a “robust body of evidence showing benefits for people with depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, and other mood-related challenges,” says Ruth Werner, author of A Massage Therapist’s Guide to Pathology.
4. It’s Good for Your Spirit
When you use your time on the table to truly let it all go and be part of the process, and when you engage in the meditative space, healing happens and the spirit can be tended to. Being in this place can help people become more self-aware, more present, more forgiving of self and others, and more open to new possibilities.
5. It Will Meet You Where You Are
Adaptable for the pregnant client, the hospital patient, the soccer mom, or the elite athlete, massage and bodywork can be beneficial, no matter your circumstance. More intense scar tissue work might be what one client needs, while the simple act of holding a hospice patient’s fragile hand can be the therapeutic salve needed by another. Deliverable to clients in their hospital beds, wheelchairs, or with their 9-months-pregnant bellies bolstered with pillows on the table, massage has a way to be of value to everyone—meeting them where they are.
6. It’s a Major Player in Stress Reduction
Experts tell us that chronic stress leads to an increased risk of hypertension, stroke, heart attack, diabetes, and more. Because massage reduces stress-related hormones, it can help our body shift out of the fight-or-flight stress response we often get stuck in. Massage “turns on” the parasympathetic nervous system, which works to calm us and help us regain homeostasis—the natural state of equilibrium our bodies should be living in.
7. It is Not a Luxury—Even If It is Just for Relaxation
Massage has long been framed as a luxury, often an indulgence for the wealthier amongst us. Truth is, massage may feel like a luxury, but it is actually a sound investment in your health. And while some people may seek out massage or bodywork to relieve pain, recover from an injury, or perform at peak athletic levels, making a massage appointment with a goal of nothing more than relaxation is just as valuable.
8. It Offers Pain Relief
From low-back to arthritis and other chronic conditions, massage can offer relief and improved quality of life for those suffering from a variety of issues. For example, scientists have shown that massage is an effective pain-management strategy for those living with arthritis, headache sufferers have decreased pain and frequency, and carpal tunnel patients have found massage decreases their symptom severity. While research in the area of massage and bodywork is still in its relative infancy, the findings continue to be promising.
9. Its Benefits Increase with Frequency
Just like increasing your exercise regimen has cumulative results, the same is true of massage and bodywork. The more massage you receive, the more benefits you reap. “Massage therapists know that people who get massage regularly demonstrate greater improvement and notice a reduction in pain and muscular tension, as well as an improvement in posture,” says Anne Williams, author of Massage Mastery.
10. It Offers Something for Everyone
There are more than 300 types of massage and bodywork modalities, with new combinations and protocols being developed all the time. Today, the work continues to evolve as science further unravels the mysteries of the human body. From structural integration to reflexology, and from cupping to Swedish massage, the massage and bodywork tapestry of techniques puts a lot of tools in your self-care toolbox.
The more massage you receive, the more benefits you reap.
