Information

Positive Effects of Massage Therapy

In broad overview, all the "feel good" hormones increase during and for a time after massage, while all the "stress" hormones decrease.

Dopamine (increases)

Influences motor activity (movement), ability to focus attention, and mood in terms of inspiration, intuition, joy, and enthusiasm.

Serotonin (increases)

Regulates mood, attention to thoughts, calming. Subdues irritability. Involved in satiety, reduces the sense of cravings and hunger – both for food and sex. Modulates the wake/sleep cycle. Low levels have been implicated in depression, eating disorders, pain disorders, obsessive-compulsive disorders.

*There is a balancing effect between dopamine and serotonin. Massage is believed to influence the optimal ratio of these two chemicals.

Enkephalins/Endorphins/Dymorphins (increases)

All are mood lifters that support satiety and modulate pain.

Oxytocin (increases)

Functions in pregnancy, delivery, lactation. Also implicated in bonding – couple bonding, parental/infant bonding.

Growth Hormone (increases)

In adults, functions in the process of healing, tissue repair and regeneration. This hormone is most active during sleep.

Cortisol and other Glucocorticoids (decreases)

All are stress hormones implicated in many stress related diseases and disorders, decreased immunity, and sleep disturbances.

Epinephrine/Adrenaline (AKA:Norepinephrine/Noradrenaline) (regulates)

Massage seems to regulate these levels. Massage will calm these levels if too high, but also will increase these levels if too low. Thus, massage affects the balalce of the parasympathetic and sympathetic nervous systems.

Bonus: Massage decreases the stress hormone cortisol while increasing the feel good hormones of serotonin and dopamine. This results in decreasing heart rate, decreasing blood pressure, and blocking nervous system pain receptors.

All healing occurs when the body is in parasympathic ("rest and repose") mode. Massage assists in calming the sympathetic ("flight or fight") nervous system and activing the parasympathetic nervous system.

There are primarily three main locations in the United States where research on massage therapy continues: The National Institutes of Health, National Center for Complimentary and Alternative Medicine, and The University of Miami School of Medicine, Touch Research Institute(Tiffany Field, PhD). The preceeding information comes from this research.

Neuromuscular Therapy

What is Trigger Point Therapy? (Neuromuscular Therapy)

A trigger point can be thought of as a knot in a muscle. The defining symptom of a trigger point is referred pain. The result is you can have a knot in a muscle, but you feel pain or discomfort elsewhere. Some common examples of referred pain are tension headaches, migraine, sinus pain, and a stiff neck that won’t let you turn your head.Back pain very often is nothing but referred pain from trigger points. Low back pain can come from trigger points in surprising places, such as your buttocks, your stomach muscles, or even your calf muscles or hamstrings. Treatment for back pain often fails when trigger points are not identified as a possible cause. Jaw pain, earache, and sore throat can also be caused by a trigger point. Stiffness and pain in a joint, sore legs, sore feet, or painful ankles may all be caused by trigger points. Muscles that have been shortened, stiffened, or enlarged by a trigger point will frequently squeeze a nearby nerve. Sensations such as numbness, tingling, burning, or hypersensitivity, especially in the arms and hands can be due to trigger points. Trigger points can also cause a muscle to clamp down on the blood supply especially to the extremities causing cold hands or feet. Trigger points are often the major source of pain in whiplash, yet many times they go undiagnosed. Tears, sprains, and dislocations may be diagnosed, yet the accompanying trigger points are not. Failure to recognize and treat trigger points as a part of any physical injury delays complete healing and causes needless pain. Trigger points can also be caused by accidents, falls, strains, or any kind of trauma including a onetime episode of overdoing it. Emotional stress, food sensitivities, food allergies, how one sleeps at night, how one sits in front of a computer, can all be suspect. A sedentary lifestyle is a great perpetuator of trigger points. Muscles need to work in order to stay healthy. That being said the "weekend warrior" who over does it in short bursts will most likely find aches and pains on Monday morning that are the result of trigger points. Trigger points don’t respond to positive thinking, biofeedback, meditation, and progressive relaxation or topical ointments. Applications of heat or cold may temporarily reduce pain but they won’t deactivate trigger points. Likewise, electrical stimulation can give temporary relief of pain but not affect a trigger point long term. Swedish massage, therapeutic touch, craniosacral therapy all have their place in therapeutic bodywork, yet they are not specific enough to deactivate trigger points. Even death doesn’t get rid of trigger points! Autopsies have been performed where trigger points have been identified. Very specific trigger point therapy needs to be applied directly to the affected area to bring results. Chronic pain from long-standing trigger points may require multiple treatments, as with any other therapy. Time is of the essence in treating a newly acquired trigger point because they can be relieved more quickly and hopefully not return. Resources for this article: Myofascial Pain and Dysfunction: The Trigger Point Manual Janet G Travell, MD., David G. Simons, M.D. The Trigger Point Therapy Workbook by Clair Davies

Fibromyalgia Massages

In 1932, Johan Mezger, a physician in Amsterdam, considered the Founder of Modern Scientific Massage, developed massage techniques for "treating 'nodules' and taut cord-like bands" associated with the condition we now call fibromyalgia.

In 1987 the American Medical Association recognized fibromyalgia as a distinct syndrome. So fibromyalgia, with its widespread muscle pain, is a syndrome meaning a collection of symptoms that fit together to further diagnose and identify the disorder. In 1990 the American College of Rheumatologists (ACR) further defined fibromyalgia syndrome with the now familiar 18 tender points and a "history of widespread pain for at least three months".

Symptoms Other Than Pain

In 1992, at the Second World Congress on Myofascial Pain and Fibromyalgia, held in Copenhagen, a document was produced on fibromyalgia which added a number of symptoms to the ACR definition. They are as follows: persistent fatigue, generalized morning stiffness and non-refreshing sleep, headache, irritable bladder, dysmenorrhea (painful menstruation), extreme sensitivity to cold, restless legs, odd patterns of numbness and tingling, intolerance to exercise, anxiety and/or depression and other symptoms.

Massage

Research from The Touch Research Institute, University of Miami Medical School, indicates benefits from appropriate forms of massage in the treatment of fibromyalgia.

Techniques such as light touch massage, lymphatic drainage, soft tissue manipulation, deactivation of myofascial trigger points, and myofascial release, all have been shown to effectively relieve the pain associated with fibromyalgia. Also noteworthy, one of the greatest benefits of massage for fibromyalgia clients is in areas of mood and depression. Massage can greatly increase a sense of wellbeing and mental calm.

Nearly half of all people with fibromyalgia have disturbed sleep (specifically the delta stages of sleep). Delta stage sleep involves immune system repair functions and growth hormone being released by the pituitary gland. Eighty percent of growth hormone is produced during delta stage of sleep. This has a direct effect on the quality of repair and regeneration of muscles. When this hormone is deficient because of sleep disturbances, the end result can be the muscular pain symptoms of fibromyalgia. This can then become a vicious cycle. One doesn’t sleep soundly because of muscular pain. Then, lack of sleep creates more muscle pain. Massage can be a great enhancer of a good night’s sleep because it reduces muscle pain and, also, because massage can release endorphins that result in a sounder night’s sleep.

Those who live with fibromyalgia know that muscle pain as well as other symptoms vary from day to day. One day your level of pain tolerance is pretty good and the next day it’s not! Your massage therapist needs to be aware of this. Some days you will be able to tolerate a deeper touch and other days you will not. There’s great benefit for you in receiving a massage on either of those days – or any kind of day in between the two extremes.

Massage for fibromyalgia:

Enhances sleep
Diminishes muscular aches and pains
Increases energy levels
Increases sense of wellbeing
Balances hormones
Aids in detoxification

Resource for this article:
Fibromyalgia Syndrome, A Practitioner’s Guide to Treatment By Leon Chaitow, (British Physician)