The hidden benefits of massage!
I’m often asked why massage is so beneficial. One of the top reasons is management of stress! In this modern world we are overloaded with stress in so many ways!
Once upon a time our species were hunter-gatherers. In these times human beings had a threat from predators, that could have lead to death overloading our sympathetic nervous system and triggering the release of stress hormones such as cortisol and adrenaline. These hormones in small doses are absolutely vital to our health, and even have anti-inflammatory effects. This type of stress is called acute stress as it is short lived.
These days however we are under a new type of stress which is now chronic and not short lived. In this modern world stress rarely remains in small doses. Never in our history have we so easily been stressed. From a doom and gloom headline, a reminder from your boss about an assignment, or been stuck in traffic.
The near constant exposure to stressful stimuli means that we’re consistently producing stress hormones such as cortisol. Over time Cortisol has a pro-inflammatory effect in the body, meaning it starts to cause widespread inflammation. The more inflammation we hold within our body the more sickness, disease, and pain we will have.
So how does massage come in? At the beginning of this blog I mentioned the sympathetic nervous system (responsible during times of stress), massage activates the parasympathetic nervous system (responsible for relaxation and calm following a time of stress), both of these branches of the nervous system operate in a push pull relationship where one of them has to be dominant at any one time. By utilising massage we can pull it in the direction of the parasympathetic nervous system, reduce the cortisol levels within the body, therefore reducing the inflammation in our bodies and reduce pain, as well as giving the brain and body a break in this incessant cortisol producing world that we live in today.
Sean Moseley - Massage Therapist, Core Wellness Centres, Epsom