Benefits of Massage

Life is all about balance, but finding that balance is not always easy.

To achieve balance in your life, massage therapist Emily Howard recommends getting a massage.

"Any positive benefit you can think of is what massage does," Emily says. "The biggest deal is it helps your body do what it needs to do to be in balance and heal."

Emily became a massage therapist to establish interpersonal relationships.

"I like the idea of connecting a lot with people one-on-one and I wanted to do something that resonated with me, and massage allows me to connect with each body worker."

Located in downtown San Luis Obispo, Emily works with people individually to figure out their needs.

"To me, healing can't actually happen with addressing just one level -just the body or just the mind," she says.

But what really makes her unique as a massage therapist is her ability to work off of her intuition during sessions.

"It really kind of zens the person out and they love it."

Research shows that there are many benefits of massage. Massage relaxes muscles, reduces stress and anxiety, and cleanses body systems. Getting massages can also help with the following:

• Alleviate lower back pain

• Ease labor pain for pregnant women

• Help with tissue regeneration

• Improve circulatory and immune systems

• Improve concentration

• Increase joint flexibility

• Produce energy

• Relieve pain

Other effects of massage help with medical conditions. For example, massage has been proven to alleviate people with arthritis, increase air flow in children with asthma, reduce pain and itchiness in burn victims, lower blood pressure, and decrease menstrual cramps. However, according to massagetherapy.com, to increase all the benefits of massage, it is best to get massages regularly.

Because studies have shown so many benefits of massage, "the medical community is actively embracing bodywork, and massage is becoming an integral part of hospice care and neonatal intensive care units," according to massagetheraphy.com. "Many hospitals are also incorporating on-site massage practitioners and even spas to treat post-surgery or pain patients as part of the recovery process."

References:

Emily Howard, massage practitioner

http://www.massagetherapy.com/learnmore/benefits.php