Due to the stress of modern busy lives, mental tension and anxiety have become increasingly common. Originating from job pressure, life imbalances, or personal traumas, mental health issues are now an issue for everyone. Though as essential as the traditional forms of therapy and medication are, other options like massage therapy are now coming into prominence due to their high impacts on mental health.
Not a luxury or spa treatment, massage therapy is a force for good with tangible outcomes on head and body. Used in combination with the help of an osteopath in Wimbledon or other medical professionals, it can be part of a wider, more successful strategy for easing anxiety and emotional health.
Let us now look at how massage therapy calms the mind and stabilises our emotional life.
Engages the Relaxation Response of the Body
Massage affects the body through triggering the parasympathetic nervous system, the aspect of your body that knows rest and relaxation. Soft pressure, stretching, and rub-like movement massage lower cortisol (the stress hormone) levels and boosts serotonin and dopamine, neurotransmitters associated with mood.
This relaxation response can also calm the anxious person. With repeated sessions, the body learns to relax quicker and quicker, reducing the severity and frequency of anxiety attacks.
Relieves Muscle Tension and Accumulated Stress
When we are under stress, our bodies react physically tight shoulders, clenched jaws, and headaches are all signs of tension. These physical symptoms often create a feedback loop with anxiety: stress causes tension, and tension heightens stress.
Massage disrupts this cycle by releasing tense muscles and enhancing circulation. This relaxing of the body sends a message to the brain that it receives as being relaxed and makes clients feel more relaxed between and after sessions.
Osteopaths are aware of most of this connection between mind and body and include massage in their treatment regimen to help correct physical imbalance as well as stress and tension.
Promotes Mindfulness and Affective Awareness
One of the overlooked advantages of massage therapy is that it has the ability to get you present. While you are in session, distractions become fleeting, thoughts quiet down, and your focus turns to your breath and body sensing. This mindfulness exercise is a very practical anxiety-management technique.
The more body-aware and attuned to the messages of your body, the better your capacity for knowing when tension is rising and how and when to intervene and soothe your system. Osteopaths teach this sensitivity in an interlinked model of stress management so clients can experience more balanced states of mind and body.
Enhances Sleep and Energy Levels
Restful sleep and tiredness are typical side effects of anxiety. As luck would have it, massage promotes healing, sleep as a consequence of soothing the nervous system, alleviating pain, and easing stress hormones.
Improved sleep means clearer thinking, emotional balance, and energy during the day. Combined with treatment by an osteopath, perhaps restriction in posture, imbalance in muscle, or pain, clients often find that they feel more energised and have a brighter outlook.
Offers Safe, Therapeutic Touch
Touch is one of the human needs lacking today. For the fearful or traumatically harmed, safe, therapeutic touch is incredibly healing.
Massage therapy offers a safe haven where the client can heard, be cared for, and be supported without coercion or judgement. That sense of connection can be incredibly healing, restoring emotional balance and trusting the body.
In integrated practices where osteopathy and massage therapy are integrated, clients are offered an integrated system of treatment that may be able to treat physical alignment as well as emotional conditions.
Wrapping Up
The massage benefit transcends even relaxation of tense muscles. It is a calming, natural means of quieting the mind, dispelling emotional tension, and achieving long-term mental well-being. As part of a holistic treatment with an osteopath, it is an added richness for a balanced regimen of stress reduction and overall health.
Whether you are addressing everyday stress or you have a full-blown chronic stress issue, adding regular massage in Wimbledon to your routine can be one of the most soothing and life-changing things you can do. Contact us today to learn more about osteopathy treatments in Wimbledon.
