Some people viewed it as a luxury for the wealthy or a code word for illegal activities. Now massage is widely available and viewed as an important tool in promoting mental and physical health. Massage is a general term for pressing, rubbing, and manipulating your skin, muscles, tendons, and ligaments. Massage may range from light stroking to deep pressure. It's generally considered part of integrative medicine. A common misconception about massage is that it's only part of a spa day and intended for pampering yourself. While this may be true for some people, it is most frequently a tool for stress reduction and pain relief. Benefits of massage include:
After a massage:
It's common to feel relaxed, tired, or even sore after a massage. This is because your muscles are being worked by the massage therapist. After a massage, it may feel like you completed a workout. It is possible to experience a headache or nausea after a massage. Some people think that massage must hurt to help. But a massage doesn't need to be painful to be effective. Occasionally you may have a sensitive spot in a muscle that feels like a knot. It's likely to be uncomfortable while your massage therapist works it out.
Deep tissue massage isn't just a Swedish massage with deeper strokes or harder pressure. Deep tissue massages use firm pressure and slow stroked to massage deep layers of muscle and fascia, which is the connective tissue that surrounds your muscles.
When the massage begins, your massage therapist usually starts with lighter pressure to warm up your muscles and then works into deeper pressure.
The common techniques used in deep tissue massage therapy include stripping, which is deep pressure that glides along the length of your muscle fibers and friction, which applies pressure across the grain of your muscle to break up adhesions and align tissue fibers.
Craniosacral therapy (CST) is a gentle hands-on treatment that may provide relief from a variety of symptoms including headaches, neck pain and side effects of cancer treatment among many others’ uses a light touch to examine membranes and movement of fluids in and around the central nervous system.
Relieving tension in the central nervous system promotes a feeling of well-being by eliminating pain and boosting health and immunity. The focus of CST is a gentle placement of hands to assist release of the body’s connective tissue, or “fascia.” Fascia (Latin word for “band”) is a covering found throughout the body including organs, glands, nerves, muscles, blood vessels, brain, and spinal cord. These coverings form a body-wide connective network. CST is based on the idea that the body is interrelated at all levels.
CST is thought to improve efficiency of biological processes through boosting inherent self-regulation, self-correction, and self-healing. The therapy can be used successfully with children and adults.
Illness in the body can have emotional as well as physical causes. Many bodywork practitioners, including craniosacral therapists, believe that emotional pain leading to depression, anxiety, trauma, or grief is often held in the body in the form of tension. This tension can lead to physical health problems such as pain or other chronic conditions. Craniosacral therapy can help to release that tension, allowing you to let go of the old emotional pain.
It is common for patients to experience old, trapped emotions coming to the surface after a session. Especially when approached with patience and mindfulness, this can be an opportunity to resolve them.Chronic health conditions can also lead to depression and anxiety because they can make life so unpleasant and difficult. Craniosacral has been found to be useful in providing relief in some such circumstances.
Trigger point therapy is a soft tissue technique that works to release painful, tension in muscles and fascia that you would usually experience as a knot in the muscle. Tigger points are usually found in the muscles. However, they can also be found in the tendons and ligaments.
They can be classified into two types: active and latent. Active trigger points cause pain even when you’re not using the muscle. Latent trigger points only cause pain when the muscle is used.
Trigger point therapy is a massage that targets these knots to release and relieve pain. This therapy can be done with the fingers, elbows, or a special device called a trigger point wand.
Trigger point therapy is an effective treatment for many types of muscle pain. It can also help to improve range of motion and flexibility. If you are experiencing pain or tightness in a muscle, trigger point therapy may be a helpful treatment for you.
Lymphatic drainage massage, also known as manual lymphatic drainage, is a gentle form of massage used to relieve painful swelling in your arms and legs caused by Lymphedema. Lymphedema often affects people recovering from breast cancer surgery.
Lymphedema happens when your tissues retain fluid left behind after your cardiovascular system sends blood to your tissues and organs. The remaining fluid is called lymph. Normally, your lymphatic system collects your lymph and returns it to your heart via a network of lymph vessels and lymph nodes. When something disrupts your lymphatic system's process, lymph collects in your arms and legs, making them swell.
A massage therapist uses lymphatic drainage massage techniques to move lymph from your tissues to your lymph nodes, which eases the swelling in your tissues. Lymphatic drainage massages are often used to relieve lymphedema following breast cancer surgery. Other conditions that benefit from lymphatic drainage massages are:
Geriatric massage involves using the hands to gently rub the soft tissues to improve blood circulation, relieve pain, and increase range of motion, but it employs specialized techniques designed for aging skin and muscles.
The overall health benefits from geriatric massage are profound. It improves circulation, joint flexibility, muscle tone and strength, and the quality of sleep.
Massage for elders also reduces pain and swelling, lowers blood pressure, and decreases stress, fear, and anxiety.
This alternative therapy involves applying pressure to different areas of the feet and hands to alleviate pain in corresponding zones of the body. Applying pressure to these points stimulates the vital energy within the human body, which increases blood circulation and makes the whole-body function in a more balanced way. Consequently, reflexology is known to relieve stress, reduce pain and cure sicknesses caused by energy deficiency within the body.
Reflexology is an alternative treatment for a wide variety of conditions, as mentioned above, and has been in use for thousands of years. The ancient Chinese and Egyptians have documented practices like reflexology as a treatment for certain afflictions. It involves the reflexologist applying pressure to specific areas in the hands, feet, and ears that affect certain reflex areas of the body.
The benefits of reflexology include its ability to stimulate nerve function, increase energy, boost circulation, induce a deep state of relaxation, eliminate toxins, stimulate the central nervous system, prevent migraines, clean up urinary tract conditions, speed-up recovery after injury or surgery, help relieve sleep disorders, reduce depression, and relieve pain.
During a hot stone massage, the techniques of a regular massage are applied with hot stones that are placed on specific parts of the body.
The stones used for a hot stone massage are placed in hot water to warm up before being applied. They are then placed onto specific areas of the body to help muscles relax deeper.
The blend of incredible oils and the luxurious massage will send you into complete relaxation, and you'll leave feeling renewed.
The main benefits of the aromatherapy massage are reduction of stress and anxiety, decrease in muscle tension and pain relieve. It also helps to reduce the symptoms of depression, control the inflammation, and help with headaches.
Reiki is an energy healing technique that promotes relaxation, reduces stress and anxiety through gentle touch. Reiki practitioners use their hands to deliver energy to your body, improving the flow and balance of your energy to support healing.
Mikao Usui developed reiki in the early 1900s, deriving the term from the Japanese word’s rei, meaning “universal,” and ki, which refers to the vital life force energy that flows through all living things. It is often difficult to know whether chronic pain leads to mental health conditions, such as anxiety and depression, or whether anxiety and depression lead to increased pain (or both), but there is a relationship and studies have also shown that addressing the emotional and mental health aspect of pain can have significant impact upon the perception of pain and the tolerance for pain.
Reiki may help decrease pain perception by healing the emotional aspect of pain. Reiki is meant to resolve emotional distress by allowing healing energy to flow freely throughout the body, which results in relaxation and reduced pain and tension throughout the body. It can also help reduce stress and anxiety, which can decrease pain perception as well.
Copyright © 2024 Green Island Retreat - All Rights Reserved.
We use cookies to analyze website traffic and optimize your website experience. By accepting our use of cookies, your data will be aggregated with all other user data.