Massage Applications
Massage & Manual Therapy
Applications for a Lifetime
Integrative Health is the amalgamation of conventional, complementary and alternative health care options, focusing on whole body wellness; the healing process, maintaining wellness, and the promotion of future health & well-being. Within this, integrative massage is the approach of treating the body as a whole, not just the symptomatic areas of pain and physical dysfunction; but working on all of the factors which can lead to physical dysfunction and stress through integrating a multitude of therapies. That means reducing stress, decreasing pain, correcting muscle dysfunction, releasing tissue tension, and creating balance by stimulating the body’s innate healing capabilities through manual therapy & massage techniques.
The Touch Research Institute, University of Miami, has completed many research studies on massage therapy. These researchers have found evidence that massage has significant benefit for babies, children, adults, pregnancy and elderly persons. Massage Therapy has been shown to enhance growth in premature babies in the hospital, calm aggressive adolescents and help kids with Attention Deficit Disorder. Elderly persons in nursing homes have responded to massage with decreased agitated behaviour.
Each treatment is unique and customized to your individual needs. Further, Craniosacral Therapy, Manual Lymphatic Drainage, and Hot Stones are often added into each treatment to create a powerful partnership for whole body wellness & healing.
Therapeutic Massage
Therapeutic Massage involves individual assessment and is outcome based to aid in relief and assist treatment of soft-tissue dysfunction, pain and injuries often caused by lifestyle factors, repetitive strain, occupation, illness, sports, pregnancy.
Corporate Wellness
Corporations and other institutions are discovering that massage therapy programs for employees pay off in a multitude of ways. Job stress has been identified as a serious health care issue that relates to decreased productivity, decrease job satisfaction, increased work related injury, errors at work, and absenteeism. Research reported in the Financial Times, and in Massage Therapy: The Evidence for Practice, show that massage is a good tool for reducing work stress.
Immunity
Studies have shown positive results in boosting the body's own natural cellular immune response, decreasing pain by pumping up the body's levels of endorphins and decreasing the blood levels of cortisol (a hormone related to stress). These beneficial results are proving helpful for people with critical illnesses like cancer and HIV infection, and for those who suffer from Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and Fibromyalgia.
PTSD, Trauma, Stress Relief
Therapeutic massage may provide stress relief, decrease anxiety, reduce the effects of depression, and improve personal mood for many clients. Additionally, a 2012 study focusing on how integrative therapies can help promote healing, found that those clients who received massage therapy reported significant reductions in physical pain, tension, irritability, anxiety, and depression.
Another recent study of Somali women refugees with chronic pain, the majority of whom reported military and/or sexual trauma, found that massage therapy provided enormous relief for distressing physical and psychological symptoms which were largely attributed to the exposure to trauma. This according to Cynthia Price, a research professor at the University of Washington and massage therapist.
Massage therapists can also provide clients with at-home self-care strategies to help prolong the positive benefits achieved from treatment, not only in massage therapy sessions, but with other integrative treatment approaches. People who have been traumatized are no longer at home in their bodies, and massage therapists can teach clients safe and effective ways of self-soothing and techniques for stress management.
Addiction Recovery
Incorporating massage into a substance abuse program is advantageous in all of the stages of quitting an addiction: withdrawal, detoxification and abstinence. The physical, emotional and spiritual components of recovery all can be directly benefited by the healing power of therapeutic touch. The nurturing contact of massage utilizes skin as the translator of the therapist’s intent.
Skin, the largest sensory organ in our body, is our primary sense for connecting information from our external surroundings to our internal environment. Massage therapy may increase the amount of beta-endorphins in the blood by a least 16 percent. The release of endorphins during a massage allows the recipient to feel normal, even fantastic, without the aid of a drug. This can be a powerful, even life-changing experience for the client.
On a physical level, the circulation that occurs with massage is also a desired occurrence during the detoxification process. Therapeutic massage’s invigoration of blood and lymphatic fluid allows for a more efficient exchange of oxygen rich nutrition into the body’s tissues, and the delivery of toxic waste products out of the body’s tissues.
On an emotional level, part of an addict’s recovery process is learning to identify and manage the triggers that cause them to desire escape. Regular massage sessions can aid the client’s awareness of his or her own body, including where and when tension exists, and provide coping mechanisms for these triggers.
Being conscious of these patterns is a step toward recognizing one’s own resistance, which can lead to healthfully addressing emotions associated with cravings and stress. In addition "Emotional release can commonly occur with massage, which provides a safe, non-threatening opportunity to begin the process of recovering long-buried emotions and memories.”
On a spiritual level, the deep relaxation of a massage can provide a still inner place for the recipient to connect with themselves. Being grounded, centered and fully present can be experienced when receiving therapeutic touch from a grounded, centered and fully present practitioner.