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What are the benefits
of massage?
Everyone can benefit from a professional massage. Massage therapy can --
- provide anything from soothing
relaxation to deeper therapy for specific physical problems;
- relieve stress and
anxiety;
- increase the nourishing
blood
supply to tissues;
- improve energy and
alertness;
- aid recovery from
pulled
muscles or sprained ligaments;
- ease many of the uncomfortable
stresses of child bearing, including edema, back aches, and exhaustion;
- relieve certain repetitive
motion
injuries related to on-the-job activities;
- greatly reduce pain
from such problems as temporary mandibular
joint dysfunction(TMJ) or carpal
tunnel syndrome; and
- compensate, at least
in part,
for lack of exercise and muscular contraction if
one is -- because
of age injury, or illness -- forced to remain
inactive.
A Healthy Response
Once a massage is underway, a whole range of beneficial reactions is
set in
motion. The therapy can --
- hasten elimination
of waste and
toxic debris that are stored in the muscles,
- increase the interchange of substances
between the blood and tissue cells,
- heighten the oxygenation of the
tissues, and
- stimulate the relaxation
response
within the nervous system.
All of these responses can --
- help to strengthen
the immune
system,
- improve posture,
- increase joint flexibility
and range of motion, and
- lower heart rate and
blood
pressure.
What Massage does to STRESS
Massage can dramatically reverse the damaging effects of stress by helping to
--
- improve circulation,
- raise skin temperature,
- heighten a sense of
well-being,
- and cause anxiety
levels
to drop.
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