Massage really has a million benefits, but here is a quick list of 101 ways massage can and does improve lives every day.
Psychological:
1. Reduce Stress
2. Reduce Anxiety
3. Reduces depression
4. Can help to gain new perspectives by relaxing the mind which can help create new neuropathways
5. An escape from life / mini vacation
6. Helps you become more self-aware by knowing what is going on in your body
7. Increase mindfulness
8. Boost mental health and wellness
9. Increase vitality
10. Increases sense of well-being
11. Increases productivity
12. Can help increasing reaction time
13. Can increase alertness
14. Increase mental clarity
Physical:
15. Improves posture
16. Increase range of motion
17. Decrease chronic pain
18. Decrease tension headaches and frequency of migraines
19. Hydrates and revitalizes skin
20. Reduce spasms and cramping
21. Keeps discs healthy
22. Decreases pressure on the joints
23. Decrease stiffness
24. Help manage carpal tunnel
25. Decrease jaw pain
26. Help manage chronic jaw issues
27. Ease sciatica
28. Reduce tender points
29. Increases metabolism
30. Reduces lactic acid build up
31. Lower Blood pressure
32. Reduce acute pain
33. Increase blood flow
34. Increases the delivery of oxygen and nutrients to tissues
35. Can aid in elimination
36. Ease pain in stomach from food poisoning
37. Ease chronic symptoms for post-polio sufferers
38. Increases blood flow to organs, allowing them to function better
39. Early detection of skin cancer
40. Help ease pain in clients in hospice care
41. Help ease painful oncology treatments
42. Reduces nausea in chemotherapy patients
43. Decrease and in some cases eliminate scar tissue
44. Strengthens immune system
45. Decreases recovery time post-surgery
46. In some cases, prevent surgery for tendonitis
47. Help decrease pain for sufferers of plantar faciitis
48. Lessen the effects of rheumatoid or osteoarthritis
49. Decrease numbness or tingling in extremities
50. Decrease the pain associated with scoliosis, lordosis, or kyphosis
51. Aid in recovery from strains or sprains
52. Decrease the pain from upper crossed syndrome or thoracic outlet syndrome
53. Aid in sinus health
Athletics / Fitness:
54. Decreases recovery from workouts
55. Decreases recovery time from an injury
56. Makes exercise easier
57. Helps with exercise gains
58. Reduce muscle tension
59. Help athletes monitor muscle tone
60. Promote relaxation
61. Reduce muscle hypertonicity
62. Improve soft tissue function
63. Support recovery from the transient immunosuppression state
64. Support the recovery of heart rate variability and diastolic blood pressure after high intensity exercise
65. Decrease muscle stiffness and fatigue after exercise
66. Improve exercise performance
67. Decrease DOMS (Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness)
68. Reduce serum creatine kinase post exercise
69. Reduce swelling
70. Reduce irregular breathing patterns
71. Enhance athletic performance
72. May help prevent injuries when massage is received regularly
73. Is the most efficient self-care regiment tor maintaining maximal athletic performance
Sleep and breathing:
74. Improve sleep
75. Increase sleep hours
76. Improve quality of sleep
77. Overcome feelings of fatigue
78. Practice deep breathing
79. Practice breathing
Pregnancy / women’s health:
80. Decrease discomfort during pregnancy
81. Assist in shorter, easier labor for expecting mothers
82. Decrease bloating, cramping, mood swings, and other PMS related symptoms
Hormones:
83. Balance hormones
84. Decrease urninary CRF-LI (a biochemical marker of stress-related symptoms
85. Decrease cortisol levels
86. Releases endorphines
Infants (Results of a case study):
87. Massage is a cost-effective therapy for pre-term infants.
88. Pre-term infants gained more weight with just 5 days of massage
89. Massage therapy by mothers in perinatal period serves as a strong time cue, enhancing coordination of the developing circadian system with environmental cues.
90. Over the 6-week period, the massage therapy infants gained more weight, showed greater improvement on emotionally, sociability, and soothability temperament dimensions and had greater decreases in urinary stress catecholamines/hormones (norepinepherine, epinephrine, cortisol).
91. Infants receiving massage showed fewer sleep delay behaviors and had a shorter latency to sleep onset by the end of the study
92. Massage may have a stress reducing effect on pre-term infants in the NICU.
93. Reduction of illness and diarrheal episodes in orphaned children in Ecuador
Medications:
94. Decrease use of analgesics
95. Ease medication dependence
Overall:
96. Great place to start for making changes
97. Improve health status
98. Improve quality of life
99. Work well in an integrative treatment plan
100. Increase the improvement when paired with other alternative health regiments (chiropractic, acupuncture, physical therapy, and more)
101. Valuable component of your wellness program
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