Massage therapy is essential to the management of anxiety and mood disorders in our lives. Not only do we allow stress to permeate our peace of mind, we also allow it to take over our physical bodies as well. Obvious signs of stress, which can easily lead to anxiety, can be seen in postural changes, such as hunching our shoulders; slumping to one side; shallow breathing patterns which all affect how we move every day. But stress can also lead to further problems that are harder to identify as being related to stress, a few of which include skin rashes or breakouts; jaw pain (from grinding or clenching); lower back pain; muscle spasms; numbness or weakness in muscles; headaches; changed breathing patterns which can increase the frequency of asthma attacks.
A registered massage therapist will help you identify these outward signs and decrease the negative effects on your body. As your therapist decreases the tension in your too tight muscles, by engaging your sympathetic nervous system (which is the resting state), your mind and body have a chance to rebuild and repair the damage that has been done to your body with the increased levels of cortisol in your system (the stress hormone). The Touch Institute from the University of Miami conducted a study (Field et all 1995d) confirming that with massage, breathing patterns in their test subjects improved; raised blood pressure levels decreased; the levels of cortisol were also measured and showed to decrease; as well as the perception of stress in the subjects also was significantly decreased.
So do your body some good, and book your massage today to help decrease the stress in your life so that it doesn’t snowball into long term anxiety or mood disorders.
Katrina Pattison RMT
********APRIL SPECIAL!********
1 Hour $65-Reg $75