Emotion is a universally shared experience—everyone experiences happiness, and we all have periods of sadness, but we also experience moments of stress. Unfortunately, some of us may endure chronic stress, which is unhealthy not only for our minds, but also our bodies.
Stress can increase your risk of health concerns, including hypertension and cardiovascular disease, bringing down your emotional state as you deal with the repercussions of poor physical health. Stress can also complicate your mental health, making anxiety and depression more common.
When it comes to caring for your mental and physical health, lowering stress levels is a universal tip that makes its way onto nearly every list of recommendations, and massage therapy can help.
The Dangers of Stress
Stress isn’t always bad. Sometimes, stress can be the motivation you need to do a good job at work, but more often than not, it’s negative. Even more, the stress that most of us experience feels never-ending, and this chronic stress can take a toll on our bodies.
Consider this: stress is primarily intended as a life-saving automatic reaction. When you’re stressed, your body knows to do one of two things: run or fight. This is because stress occurs as a result of your body sensing a dangerous situation, and stress hormones are what prime you to react by increasing your heart rate, boosting your energy, and raising your blood pressure.
However, while this reaction saved the lives of our ancestors as they faced off against wild animals, these days, we don’t need to experience this reaction when prompted with the idea of public speaking or sitting for a job interview. These stressful situations, however, are enough to turn on our fight or flight mode, and when you endure these situations multiple times per day, your body may chronically remain in this state.
The primary driver of these stress responses is the flooding of cortisol throughout your body when you perceive a stressful situation. Cortisol, also known as the stress hormone, is what tells the body to react in this way. However, overexposure to cortisol can disrupt your body’s processes—essentially, stress hijacks your body, which can put you at risk of various problems. In terms of your mental health, you can be more susceptible to anxiety, depression, and sleep problems.
Stress, while momentarily beneficial in small amounts, can be dangerous in the long term. There are steps you can take to address it, though.
Massage Therapy Benefits for Stress
If you’re feeling stressed, massage therapy can help reduce your stress levels.
Reconfigures Hormones
Cortisol reigns supreme when you’re stressed, but massage therapy can help rearrange the hierarchy.
Massage helps to lower cortisol levels in your body, reducing the amount of stress hormone circulating and, as a result, lessening stress symptoms. However, that’s not the only messenger that massage therapy influences; massage therapy also releases serotonin, a neurotransmitter that reduces feelings of depression, which is why it is also nicknamed the “happy chemical.”
Triggers the Parasympathetic Nervous System
The nervous system can be broken into two parts: the sympathetic nervous system and the parasympathetic nervous system. The former is associated with stressful conditions, while the latter is present when your mind and body calm down.
One of the key identifiers of an active parasympathetic nervous system is a high heart rate variability, a metric that indicates your body’s ability to handle stress. The higher your HRV, the less stressed you feel. Research has shown that just 10 minutes of massage is enough to significantly increase HRV, showing how massage is able to trigger the parasympathetic nervous system and turn off your body’s stress response.
Lowers Blood Pressure
Blood pressure is another vital that rises when stressed, but massage therapy has been shown to lower its value, leading to a calmer state of mind.
Relaxes Muscles
When you’re stressed, it’s common to experience tenseness in your muscles, as they’re primed to run or fight. However, massage therapy can help to release the tension in your muscles, increasing blood flow.
Shifts Your Focus
While the body and mind are two separate entities, they have significant influence over each other; that’s why stressful situations manifest in such physical ways, such as tense muscles and an upset stomach. However, this relationship also means that you can alter your physical state to influence your mind.
By activating the parasympathetic nervous system and relieving tense muscles through massage, you can help the body stand down from its state of emergency, allowing the mind to follow. In this way, massage can help your mental health.
Offers A Distraction
Beyond the physical methods by which massage can lower stress levels, it also offers a significant mental boost by offering a distraction. While receiving a massage, you can redirect your thoughts away from the stressful situation, focusing instead on the comfort and security offered while at the massage table. You can focus on remaining mindful during your massage, further lowering stress levels in a way that can last even after your session.
Relieves Pain
Pain can be a significant source of stress, especially when the pain interferes with your ability to accomplish daily activities. By addressing the source of pain through massage therapy and relieving it, you remove yet another source of stress.
Massage-Away Stress
Massage therapy is a powerful modality that can improve both your physical and mental health, especially in regard to the effects of stress. This strain that can slowly eat away at your mental and physical well-being can be hazardous to live with, even though it’s something that the world has long considered a normal part of adult life. However, by leading to poor physical health and mental health conditions such as anxiety and depression, stress is something best avoided.
Massage therapy can help reduce stress levels in many ways, from lowering cortisol to triggering the parasympathetic nervous system to offering a distraction. As a result, your mental health will see a boost, thanks to your massage sessions.
If you’re in London and would like to experience the stress-reducing benefits of massage therapy for yourself, call Opulence Thai Spa at 07-517229638 to get started.
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