Mental health is deeply rooted in physical health and physical health affects mental health. How? Whenever you get results that are not up to your expectations, you get angry and that reaction could be your mood off, stress or sometimes having the worst conversation with your loved ones. Ever felt that? What if at the same time you get a soothing head massage now you feel relaxed, right? That is what massage is for.
Mental stress, muscle pain, low immunity, internal injury are common health issues that majorly our youth and adults face nowadays. According to the report of The Economic Times, 20.8% of Indians have lower immunity, and on average 80% of Indians face anxiety and stress; yet they are not convinced to consult a therapist, masseur (who gives massage for solving above mentioned health issues.)
Though there may be many reasons for these emerging problems like financial issues or unpredictable events like Covid-19; the solution lies in having a stress relief massage but usually people in India are shy or uncomfortable to talk about.
Massage has many benefits for the patients that suffer internal injuries, regulation of blood pressure, and helps to reduce cortisol (stress hormone) by 30%, and increase your serotonin (body’s anti-pain mechanism) by 28%; you might be surprised to know, it helps you to have more spiritual connectivity if done effectively. Let’s find out how:-
Benefits and Forms of Massages
Different forms of massages are used for different purposes that provide various benefits , some of them are mentioned below,
SWEDISH MASSAGE:-
It helps in relaxing the tired human body, kneading muscles (massage technique where pressure is applied by lifting the soft tissue of a specific area, then squeezing and rolling it back in a circular motion using both palms ).
The lower back, shoulders, neck are the majorly focused in this technique that is very helpful for the ones who do work while sitting at the chair.
Swedish massage involves full body massage, it is dependent on you, from where you let masseur massage you, the complete process usually takes 60min that helps in,
1. Increased blood flow.
2. Rehabilitation of muscle injuries.
3. Reduced stress.
4. Improved immune system.
DEEP TISSUE MASSAGE:-
Very similar to Swedish massage, deep tissue focuses on applying gentle pressure to prepare muscles for further techniques like “Stripping” (to accelerate recovery and increase flexibility) and “Friction”(to increase circulation and release areas that are tight, particularly around joints).
Though there are conditions that need to be followed.
Applying pressure is necessary and in case you feel any pain during or after the massage; immediately inform your therapist. If you have any medical treatments then it is advisable to inform your therapist earlier.
Though this technique involves deep pressure on the specific part of the body and the motives are also different than Swedish massage, it helps you to get rid of;
1. Low back pain.
2. Recovery from injuries.
3. Neck pain.
4. Sciatica (pain that runs down from your lower back to one leg, majorly one side of the leg).
5. Tennis Elbow (pain in your forearm muscle).
TRIGGER POINT MASSAGE:-
As per its name, a dry needle is used in this technique to apply pressure on specific trigger points of muscles. It is typically used to treat conditions like pain in lower back, headaches; temporomandibular joint pain (located in front of your ears, joining your lower jaw to your skull).
Whenever the body gets injured, it creates inflammation that makes you cautious about your injury, you protect that part of your body by trigger point pressure to reduce that pain.
PRENATAL MASSAGE:-
What could be more helpful for a woman to have stress and pain relief during their pregnancy period. We all know, women suffer a lot before, during, and after pregnancy.
This technique is more difficult than other mentioned massages, as it involves two lives. The therapist takes care of various things before massaging the client, like:
1. If it is the second half of your pregnancy, managing the belly of the pregnant woman is an important task for a therapist, as a little mistake can give major issues.
2. A trained therapist will accommodate you during the massage so that the baby doesn’t have to feel pressure and to avoid any mishaps.
SPIRITUAL MASSAGE:-
Experienced masseurs in holistic medicines and massage therapy can perform this technique. This massage gives you an experience that heals your body and soul. This technique includes prayers, music, and positive thoughts (these three are affirmations). The deep tissue method is applied with these affirmations to give you the experience that you need.
Therapists may ask to do yoga or take long breaths before these sessions to get relaxed from daily life hustles and tensions. Once the mind is relaxed, affirmations are applied.
The therapist helps you to visualize a beautiful scene that is created with positive thoughts and music gives you a better understanding of yourself. To become more attached to the supreme power (God), the universe gives you additional peace of mind to have a balanced life and to control your emotional pains and feelings.
Reflexology:-
This method stimulate neural pathways and support optimum functioning of the body according to Reflexology Association of America. Reflexologists use procedures such as thumb and finger walking to stimulate reflex points on your feet, often matching to a related organ.
AnotherLittleThing is there are lot of options from multiple massage that an individual can choose from, be it a simple head, facial, feet, limbs or complete body massage, depending on the origin of the therapy the masseur applies the pressure or techniques to simply help in relaxation of the body parts. The regular sessions of these techniques, as suggested by therapist, will help to get positive results leading to balanced life both physically and mentally.
Although I tried to cover most of the therapies but a lot are still untouched, please let me know in case you would like me to come up with second part of this article for intense knowledge on the massage therapy widely used worldwide.
