How Massaging Your Body Helps With Stress

Gone are the days when massage was only done in spas for luxury purposes. Nowadays, it is done in clinics, hospitals, and therapeutic centers for health purposes. Many conditions are solved by massage therapy, including stress.

Keep reading to learn how massaging your body helps with stress. 

The Relaxing Environment

Most people don't realize the significance of a serene environment during a massage session. The relaxing environment in a massage room plays a vital role in reducing stress. The room is usually calm to make you feel relaxed. Also, you can have your massage outdoors next to a swimming pool.

The massage room is often decluttered, giving you a sense of organization. This will make your brain think of organizing itself healthily. Also, for outdoor massage therapy, the swimming pool gives you a calm feeling, which makes you let go of any stress.

Therefore, one of the main ways to reduce stress is choosing a suitable massage environment. Low lighting paired with slow music enables you to surrender any stress disturbing you. Your masseuse will ensure that you can easily spot everything in the room for that calm feeling.

Aromatherapy

Aromatherapy is the use of essential oils to calm you down. When you are receiving your massage, put your favorite essential oil in a diffuser, and let it fill the room. Essential oils are known for helping the mind relax.

This will significantly help you get to a calm state whenever you are being massaged. Clinics that have massage therapy sessions attest that aromatherapy plays a major role in helping the clients relax.

The most effective oils to use are lavender and sweet orange. Blending these two oils in an oil diffuser will feel the room with a calming aura. Inhaling these oils is effective in making you feel more relaxed than taking a tranquilizer.

Rebalancing Your Hormones

When stressed, you release stress hormones. This is the reason why stress is poisonous to your body. When stress hormone levels are high, your body reacts by giving you paranoia, anxiety, and panic attacks.

Massages have been confirmed to reduce stress hormones level by 30%. Cortisol is one of the primary hormones linked to stress. Research shows that people who go through massage have low levels of cortisol in their saliva as compared to people who don't get massages.

When you are being rubbed and pampered, your body releases serotonin and dopamine. These are hormones that are related to being happy and relaxed. Therefore, when these relaxing hormones are at high levels, your brain silences the stress to a point where you are completely stress-free.

Anti-depressants usually work by raising the levels of serotonin and dopamine by up to 28%. This shows that these hormones help the body stay free from stress. Thus, if you can get this solution from a massage, you don't need to take anti-depressants.

Releasing Muscle Tension

When you are stressed, your muscles always tighten. Massaging your body helps the muscle relax, and in turn, causes stress levels to reduce. When you are constantly stressed, your muscles will be super tight. This is the reason as to why people who are stressed always experience pain in their muscles, joints, neck, and they have headaches.

Fortunately, massages help relieve all of these pains. The deep massage technique is used in this scenario. After a massage session, your muscles will be completely relaxed, and you will not feel body pains. 

This shows that massage has anti-inflammatory effects. Therefore, instead of visiting hundreds of pharmacies to get medications for your pains, try massage.

Increase Your Sleep Quality

Stress affects the way you sleep. This means that you may be sleeping in late or waking up between naps. When you are stressed, it is hard to have a good quality of sleep, and this will lead to other complicated issues such as insomnia.

Massages are known for increasing your sleep quality. As obvious as it sounds, sleeping for eight hours will significantly reduce stress. This is because your body will get enough time to rejuvenate, and your brain will relax. Consequently, you will wake up the next day happy and ready to tackle any challenge.

Waking up at 3:00 AM to stare at the walls will lead to a stressful day. It is crucial to consider getting a massage when you have sleep problems because there is a high chance that they are caused by stress.

Improve Your Eating Habits

When you are stressed, over or under eating is one of the main habits developed because stress suppresses the digestive system. Deep massaging helps restore the normal functioning of the digestive system,

The best massage oils can penetrate the skin muscles and work on stretching deeper tissues in the digestive system. This means that you will eat normally, and your levels of stress will be reduced. If you have an eating disorder that is caused by stress, consider getting a massage.

Improve Immune System Activity

Stress messes up with the immune system of humans. This explains why you always have flu, colds, and different diseases when you are stressed. Massage helps restore the functioning of your immune system. As a result, when you are feeling better, you will be less stressed.

Stress affects various parts of the body. It is vital to get massage a few times a month to ensure that your body is functioning right to reduce the chances of allowing stress to get the best of you.

Relieve Pain for Athletes

Nothing is as stressful for an athlete as getting an injury. This means that they will not take part in the subsequent games until they have fully recovered. However, sport massage sessions have helped reduce stress in athletes.

Athletes who go through massage sessions normally get back to the field earlier than those who only take medications. This means they are not stressed about having injuries that interfere with their career. This massage technique can be done on the full body or on the injured part only.

These are practical ways in which massage helps reduce stress. Try them today and say goodbye to stress.

Resources: Massage Envy, Massage Heights