Not Just For Breakfast Anymore

November 14, 2011 By Leave a Comment
Increase your vitality and reduce recovery time with massage therapy

How many times have you said “I wish I had time for a massage”?  I’ll bet about as many times as you’ve said “I wish I ate healthier” or “I wish I got more than 6 hours of sleep (or less!)”.  These statements all recognize that you “wish” you could add even just one element of healthy habit to your life that would make relieving physical and mental stress so much simpler.

I’m here to tell you: it is possible!  Here’s how – you know:

A healthy mind and body can make your day more productive: massage therapy can bring back or maintain an optimal range of motion to that chronic shoulder or hip injury site or repetitive motion, and it may help you do more of the things you want.  Depression because of pain and symptoms that keep you from being “your best” is known to be one of the biggest obstacles in the way of a productive day…or even, life.

Help yourself!  Negotiate that depression: Help your body facilitate healing with these benefits of a massage:

  • More restful sleep
  • Increased range of motion of joints and muscles
  • Decreased pain & increased physical stamina
  • More!

…and MAKE the time, even if just a couple of times a month, to improve your physical and mental quality of life!  Meet that deadline, run ALL those errands, and take care of your loved ones more often and with more energy…and regular massage!

Hands In MOTION is just that: a mobile massage therapy service that comes to you: your home, hotel, or office, to bring the convenience of healing facilitation without the stress of travel, high spa pricing, or complicated/risky product application.  Find a time that works for you, and get ready to Relax, Revitalize, and Rejuvenate!

TIP: pick a time of day for your massage when you are typically most alert – being alert is a sign that your energy is at its peak, and so are your mental and physical functionality.  Get your massage when you are at your strongest, not your weakest or most vulnerable.

Call or email David today for a free consultation and to Book Now! (702) 339-4325 Pre-paid package rates

Or, find a massage therapist where you are:

Filed Under: Client Education Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Massage Therapy and Improving Mental Health

May 6, 2011 By Leave a Comment

When you hear the term “addiction”, you might think of drugs, extreme sports participation, Fanatics of sports teams, alcohol, pharmaceuticals, egocentric disorders (narcissism, etc), or stalking behaviors.  Chemical imbalances attribute a large portion of the root of mental diseases that Western medicine defines and sometimes it is a simple pattern of choices that our brain makes that determine, over time, our inability to change or our trained capacity to be “successful” based on these repeated, and very often destructive behaviors.

A Little About Mental Health

Our overall longevity, health, and quality of life depends largely on a few factors: getting shelter, food, social interaction, and security – the last being the highest level of cognitive health…and I think, also the highest level of existence.  When humans do not experience long-lasting, healthy, and quality security, it affects their perception of the world – the other three – which ALL have a physical impact on the body.

Depression is one of the most inaccurately and inadvertently diagnosed dis-eases in modern times.  This does not assume that depression or any other form of mental distress are any less important or don’t have as much an impact on a human’s health than an acute or chronic injury, viral or bacterial infection, or sources of imbalance received into the body from an outside source.  Because of the power of the patient to manage, or rather “mismanage” as medical diagnosis seems to imply, depression is also one of the most difficult psychological disorders with physical manifestations to “cure”.  Maintenance of lower levels of depression are what many humans are challenged with and achieved on a daily basis – some examples of daily rituals that humans use to maintain good mental health might include religion, motivational reading or listening, and expression of gratitude, and all the practices & rules therein.

May is Mental Health Awareness Month

Who says In 1949, Congress passed a Bill recognizing May as Mental Health Awareness Month in the U.S. in a effort to raise public awareness and discourse about the existence, role, and maintenance options for mental illness in society.  Today, the World Health Organization and the National Institute of Mental Health concur: approximately 1 in 4 adults develop, at some point, degree, or length of time, a mental disorder.

What does it mean In the world of health care options, there are a rapidly growing number of methods that have been noted as successful.  As it is with “fixing” things, not every person responds the same way to a method and not every method works for everyone.  The discourse and repeated awareness is to engage the public in the current options, successes, and reasons for addressing mental health as an important part of quality life – for the person and those people surrounding them.

Why it’s important our attitude and ability to rebound from events that affect us physically and mentally are the two most important qualities to be aware of when finding non-pharmaceutical or alternative methods of healing.  A healthy ego, self-esteem, and perception of the big picture are just a few ways that people get from depression that is moderately imbalanced to depression that is at-risk of existing in a void, beyond help from outside sources.

How Massage Therapy Affects Mental Health

Massage therapy can help a person overcome or recover from physical & mental addictions or conditions that are supported by physical imbalances (hormonal, pain management, restricted range of motion, etc) and feed depression or various other psychological elements to your health.  It has been used and recommended by medical doctors to alleviate mental stress for patients and recommended by massage therapy professionals in the field by the nature of the physical effects that correlate improved physical function with improved mental faculty.

Anyone can search the internet to find articles, blogs, stories, anecdotes, and research to support the use of massage therapy to better or enhance the quality of life for those addressing their mental or psychological imbalances, but there are a few places that I recommend you search and decide for yourself.

For quantified results (before:after, test pilots, research studies):

For anecdotal results (what works for me, industry statements, experienced practitioner reports):

 

In 2002, Cathy Wong at About.com published an article called What Do Physicians Think About Alternative Medicine?  Amazing results of a 276-Colorado-Physican pool (published originally in the Archives of Internal Medicine):  48% of the 276 MDs recommend Massage Therapy to their patients AND 60% of the MDs wanted to learn more about alternative medicine/therapies.

Massage therapy can be a method of release of muscle memories resulting in (possibly) either physical or emotional discomfort or trauma but definitely reprogramming – the intent of the work is to balance the chemical, virtual, real, and spiritual body and the methods used to achieve balance are some of the most diverse and effective known to humans – from touch therapy (bodywork) to medical massage (soft tissue manipulation).

Be careful: getting regular massage may seem or actually be addictive – the endorphins that are naturally produced from an activity such as exercise, good food, and good social interaction are also produced during a massage session in your favorite place or using your favorite massage modality.  But this kind of addiction can be managed in a way that makes it a moderate form of healthy healing time for your mind, body, and soul.

 

More info about mental health:  National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), Mental Health America (MHA)

Filed Under: ...for practicing Massage Therapists, Client Education Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Multiple Sclerosis & Massage Therapy, Reflexology

March 28, 2009 By Leave a Comment

mscase588x400Good news for Multiple Sclerosis patients – Massage Therapy helps your inflammatory, fatigue, muscle spasticity, and motor control symptoms, with regular sessions! There are several manual techniques for addressing and improving the symptoms of MS with which a massage therapist can assist.

Multiple Sclerosis (MS) is a condition where the myelin sheaths around the brain and spinal nerves of the central nervous system (CNS) are initially inflamed, then are gradually degenerated, causing symptoms such as fatigue, spasticity, eye pain, tremors, and progressive loss of vision, sensation, and motor control. This condition is diagnosed in about 8,800 new patients every year – about 350,000 cases are known in the United States.¹

Sclerosis is a hardening of the myelin sheath when it is replaced by a plaque or scar tissue. Electrical impulses that characterize the method by which the body communicates through the nerves are literally “short circuited” because of the inability of the plaque or scar tissue to conduct the impulses. Symptoms are more or less depending on how much of the sclerosis occupies the nervous system, where myelin sheaths used to be. The “short-circuiting” effect causes motor and sensory paralysis, which shows in the lack of motor control and feeling in the skin and other perceptive organs.

Massage Therapy is indicated in a sub-acute stage of MS – that is, when the symptoms are not heightened and when the patient is in a remissive state. It improves many aspects of the symptoms, like inflammation control and stress or depression symptoms. Heat is not indicated at any time, as heat is an agitator of muscle activity, causing spasm in any stage of MS. In areas where there is little or no sensation, light massage (effleurage) is indicated in order to affect the neurons and keep them firing.

The Touch Research Institute of the University of Miami has issued two studies that show that massage therapy improves specific conditions shown in MS patients.

The first study, conducted with 24 adults with MS over 5 weeks, receiving a 45-minute massage twice a week, resulted in “the massage group ha[ving] lower anxiety and less depressed mood immediately following the massage sessions, and by the end of the study they had improved self-esteem, better body image and image of disease progression, and enhanced social functioning.”²

The second study showed the effect of reflexology on 71 randomized MS patients: “Significant improvement in paresthesias, urinary symptoms and spasticity was detected in the reflexology group. Improvement with borderline significance was observed in muscle strength between the reflexology group and the controls. The improvement in the intensity of paresthesias remained significant at three months of follow-up.”³

Amazing results from using massage therapy gives hope to the MS patients suffering MS’s debilitating conditions. You may read more about the details of the TRI studies at the University of Miami or visit the National MS Society to learn more about how reflexology is impacting the pain symptoms of MS patients.

¹Werner, Ruth (1998). Multiple Sclerosis. A Massage Therapist’s Guide to Pathology, 135-139.
²Hernandez-Reif, M., Field, T., & Theakston, H. (1998). Multiple sclerosis patients benefit from massage therapy. Journal of Bodywork and Movement Therapies, 2, 168-174.
³Siev-Ner, I., Gamus, D., Lerner-Geva, L., & Achiron, A. (2003). Reflexology treatment relieves symptoms of multiple sclerosis: a randomized controlled study. Mult Scler., 9, 356-61.
Filed Under: ...for practicing Massage Therapists, Client Education Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,