The Benefits of Massage Therapy in Getting Rid of Your Body Pain

Massage therapy has been proven to give mental, emotional, and physical health benefits. It’s a therapy to relieve stress you’ve gained from your daily tasks, such as sitting on your office chair for a long time, driving your car, and even doing your household chores. These activities can cause tension on your muscles and some joints resulting in getting stressed and worn out.

Massage therapy involves using the therapist’s hands to manipulate your muscles, tendons, and other soft tissues of your body, causing you to feel more relaxed and comfortable. There are many types of massage employing different techniques, pressure, and strokes. 

The massage or physical therapists and other health professionals have a broad knowledge of the appropriate type of massage based on your needs. Check the details below to see the benefits you’ll get from the massage therapy for your body pain. 

Low Back Pain

Many people have used massage therapy for lower back pain. Various health institutions acknowledged the benefits of massage and encouraged people who’ll undergo lower back treatment to incorporate massage therapy in their medication. 

Based on the study conducted at the University of Miami, massage therapy reduces back pain, anxiety, depression, and insomnia. It further proved that the massage improves your physical movement, and increases your dopamine and serotonin levels. 

To start with a massage for your lower back pain, you have to take off your shirt or wear a loose-fitting shirt so the therapist’s hands can reach your lower back. You can either lie down facing against your bed or simply sit on a chair facing the rail. 

If you’re ready, the therapist’s hands will make circular motions on your lower back, starting from your waist. Muscle lifting will be performed by keeping the fingers straight and slightly closing hands to lift muscles on your lower back. The therapist’s thumbs will make circular motions downward through your waist and hips. Repeating these procedures will leave a relaxing feeling on your lower back. 

Neck and Shoulder Pain

The neck and shoulder pains are the usual body pain complaints of most people. It could be your sleeping positions, body posture at work, or injuries. It could also be doing household chores, such as lifting, pushing, and pulling anything heavy at home might give you neck and shoulder pain. 

Applying pressure and hand motions on your neck and shoulder will improve blood flow and increase oxygen content. Hence, it’ll assuage the pain and lessen muscle soreness. Massage therapy will also decrease the lactic acid content that will cause muscle stiffness, so you’ll see improvement with your body movement. 

These are examples of a neck and shoulder massage. You have to sit up straight on a comfortable chair. Make sure that the therapist has the convenience of reaching your neck. You’ll receive a warm-up massage to loosen up and prepare the muscles on your neck and shoulders. The therapist’s thumbs will be placed on your nape, putting a little pressure, and making circular motions. 

Then, on your nape again, the therapist’s fingers will be gliding down the side of your neck until to your shoulders. You’ll also feel a kneading motion on your neck to your shoulder, and fingers and hands are gliding up and down on your nape. 

The therapist will put pressure on your shoulder blades, under the collar bone, and upper arms. There are still many massage techniques, but these are a few strokes for neck and shoulder pains.  

Headache

People experience headaches sometimes. However, frequent headaches can significantly affect your productivity and efficiency in your daily activities at home or work. Hence, it’ll be so difficult to think properly and finish your tasks to submit on time. That’s why you need to know the headache cause, so you would know what treatment or therapy you’ll need.

There are many reasons for experiencing a headache. It could be migraine or high blood pressure. You might have experienced an accident and damaged your head, or it might be the weather causing you a headache. Emotional attributes are also significant contributors to headaches, such as depression, anxiety, and stress.

A gentle massage focuses on your head, spine, and sacrum will relieve tension, ease a headache, and decrease your stress level. One effective massage therapy technique for your headache is by applying light to medium pressure in circular motions on different parts of your head. 

Position your thumbs on your cheekbones close to your ears. Gently rub with little pressure going to your temples. Then, continuously move your fingers through your hairline to the center of your forehead. Apply a constant amount of pressure in little circular motions. 

There are a lot of massage strokes and techniques that a professional therapist will perform on your head. You can also try some strokes at home on your own. It’ll improve blood circulation, especially in ischemic areas. Hence, it leaves a relaxing feeling, and the headache is consequently relieved.

Tendinopathy and Tendonitis 

The human tendons are tissues containing collagen proteins responsible for attaching your muscle to your bones. The tendinopathy is a deteriorating cellular condition of these collagen proteins over time. On the other hand, tendonitis is a condition of inflammation or soreness of your tendons.

Many people usually interchange the meanings of these two words. However, they are entirely different. These conditions of your tendons are excruciating, which will result in a decrease in flexibility and other body movements. It could be your hamstring tendons, cuff tendons, Achilles tendons, and many others.

There are many options in treating tendinopathy and tendonitis. If you have a severe case, you might have to undergo medical surgery. However, most people take advantage of the benefits of home treatment in conjunction with physical therapy that works better. 

An experienced physical therapist can help you regain your strength on your tendons and get healed by employing a few massage therapy strokes and techniques. A deeply transverse friction massage will stimulate cellular activity to reproduce a new set of collagen proteins. 

Also, the eccentric set of physical exercises will manipulate your muscles to lengthen while contractions happen. These are some of the therapeutic massage procedures for your sore tendons. Moreover, a physical therapist has an extensive knowledge of physical therapy to employ based on your health needs. 

Hip Pain

Hip pain is another health complaint of most people. There are many causes of hip pain. It could be from various muscular trigger points to the disease of wearing out and tearing of your joints called osteoarthritis. Your age, daily physical routines, and other health conditions are hip pain contributors that need to undergo careful consideration. 

Your hip pain might be at the hip joint, the back hip portion on your buttocks, or the front part of your legs. Massage therapy is vital to incorporate it into your treatment. If you started getting regular therapy early before your hip pain worsened, it’d slow down the disease’s development by applying little pressure on your joints.  

A forearm massage is using the therapist’s forearm to put pressure on your hip rotators. It’ll work deeply into your hips, releasing the necessary pressure in all directions. You might experience discomfort if you have tight hips, but it’ll subside as your therapist continues the message in a few repetitions. 

Another massage technique for your hip is by using a foam roller. Sit on it with your one leg straight up for two inches from the floor surface, and one leg bent. Position your hands behind you for support keeping your balance all the time. Then, start gliding your hips on the foam roller in the forward and backward directions. 

These are some effective and easy massage therapy techniques for your hip pain. Other professional therapists use aides like balls, rollers, and others to employ different strokes and appropriate pressure on your hips. You can visit Clark Chiropractic & Wellness of Kingwood TX and other related health institutions for any body-pain related concern and assistance.  

Takeaway

The different body pains will give you hassle in your work every day. It’ll disturb you mentally, physically, and emotionally, resulting in less productivity for your job and less efficient use of your time, effort, and resources. Before reaching that point, you can explore the benefits of physical therapy whenever you feel body pain. It’ll avoid the pain to worsen and ensue other possible health complications in the future.