I am often asked is massage really something for me?  I am just a retired old person who sits around and watches TV all day or I am in amazing shape my muscles are fine.  My reply is always massage is for everyone no matter your activity level, health level or sex.  In this blog, I want to talk about how massage can help all kinds of people and that the only thing keeping you from excellent muscle health is calling and setting up your massage.

Mental health is the first subject I would like to touch on for massage.  Many of us suffer from stress, anxiety, and signs of depression due to things that life has put upon us.   Massage is able to reduce the symptoms of these things by lowering the levels of the stress hormone cortisol. As humans, we need to have physical touch to have our bodies run correctly, massages allow us to get this touch in the fast pace world we live in.  People often forget that those around them need touch as much as they do. While massage cannot take away all our mental health issues it can help you to cope with them.

Pain is a major factor for booking a massage.  The pain can come from postoperative, lower back, fibromyalgia, headaches, migraines, osteoarthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, carpal tunnel, neck pain, joint replacement, or any number of other pain causing issues.  Massage assists in the circulation of blood to injured areas helping to heal the area quicker.  It also helps to carry away extra fluid that is causing swelling that increases pain levels.  Muscles might also be very tight in the affected area causing pain to increase, with massage the muscles will often relax allowing some pain relief.  It is said that getting a massage with telling the brain the same thing as prescription painkillers do and block the pain feeling from the body.

Speaking of the circulatory system, massage offers many benefits for it also.  They include but not limited to helps cardiovascular circulation and helps to lower blood pressure.  These are common issues with the blood system caused by many issues from stress to health issues.

Muscle health is also important to the physically active to the immobile person. Massage can help with a variety of muscles issues including tension, enhance exercise, balance in older adults, and increase the range of motion.  Our muscles can develop issues from overuse from just sitting at a desk answering the phone and typing on our computer all day long to the person that exercises morning, noon and night.  Massage can improve anyone’s flexibility with several sessions.

Massage is also been known to help with other issues like sleep patterns, stress from cancer, learning to relax, weight loss and many more things.

So, as you can see massage is for just about everyone.  Those that have had surgery need to make sure they are released by their doctor before getting a massage.  Those on prescription medications should also check with their doctor to make sure it is ok to receive massage.  There are certain prescriptions that will cause unhealthy side effects if massaged.  If your doctor says ok then boo away.  I hope all will try massage to help them be their very best.