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INTRODUCTION: THE POWER OF TOUCH:
Why is it important to our health? Physical touch like hugging and massage is essential to our well-being because it helps us to feel connected. Feeling connected positively impacts all areas of our health: physical, mental and emotional. Regular positive touch can be harder for some of us to find as adults because of a lack of social connections and interactions. Getting a massage can help us gain the many benefits of physical touch.
WHAT IS MASSAGE?
Massage is a manual therapy performed by the hands of a trained professional and involves manipulating the body’s soft tissues including muscles, tendons, ligaments, skin and connective tissue. It uses techniques like stroking, kneading, friction and tapping.
OVERVIEW OF MASSAGE BENEFITS:
Physical benefits for the body include reduced muscle tension, pain and inflammation. They also include improved circulation, sleep, energy, joint mobility, posture, injury prevention and recovery and overall exercise performance.
Mental and emotional benefits include reduced stress, improved mood, cognitive function and mental clarity. It may also include a release of trapped energy and emotions.
BREAKDOWN OF BENEFITS FOR DANCERS:
PHYSICAL:
Reduce Muscle Tension: Massage techniques target tense areas to release knots and tightness and improve circulation. By increasing the temperature of soft tissue, muscles can relax, allowing for stretching and loosening. Tense muscles have restricted movement. Muscle tension can also lead to pain.
Reduce Pain And Inflammation: Massage can reduce pain and inflammation through the release of endorphins (the body’s natural pain relievers). It also reduces the stress hormone cortisol.
Improve Circulation: Massage enhances blood flow, delivering more oxygen and nutrients to tissues and organs. This improved circulation and flow of fluids help remove toxins from the body and the stress hormone cortisol. This supports your immune system.
Improves Sleep: By helping regulate the sleep, wake cycle and production of serotonin and melatonin. Massage promotes relaxation and reduces stress which leads to better sleep quality. Good sleep is crucial for energy replenishment and for the body to repair and restore itself.
Increase Energy: Regular massages can indirectly increase our energy through the many benefits they provide by reducing the circumstances that do drain our energy like chronic pain, stress, tension and poor sleep.
Chronic Conditions: Massage can be used to improve chronic condition like back pain, headaches, arthritis and carpal tunnel syndrome.
Increase Joint Mobility And Flexibility: By loosening tight muscles and connective tissues, massage helps increase flexibility and range of motion. It can also break down scar tissue from injuries and surgeries.
Improve Posture: Relaxed muscles allow for better posture which is foundational to our dance. Good posture and muscle alignment give us skeletal support, injury prevention and longevity of our bodies health, and therefore our dance life.
Injury Prevention: tight muscles are at an increased risk of injury.
Muscle Recovery And Injury Recovery: Massage helps muscles to recover faster after strenuous workouts and performances It aids recovery of soft tissue injuries by improving circulation and blood flow and reducing soreness and inflammation. This allows faster healing. Note: Athletes like dancers are more prone to overuse injuries.
OVERALL: Improves Exercise Performance: By reducing muscle tension, stiffness and soreness and improving joint mobility; regular massage can increase your flexibility and range of motion. Important for everyone but especially important for dancers.
MENTAL & EMOTIONAL BENEFITS:
Reduce Stress: Stress has both physical, mental and emotional effects on the body. Because massage helps reduce the stress hormones cortisol; it allows both mind and body to relax.
Improves Mood: Massage stimulate the release of endorphins, serotonin and dopamine. These positive hormones do more than pain relief.They are “feel good hormoneswhich creates an overall sense of well being.This can help reduce feelings of anxiety, loneliness and depression. and frees up more room for happiness and joy.
Improves Cognitive Function and Mental Clarity: Massage lowers stress and tension, improves blood flow to the brain and creates a state of calm and relaxation. That allows for clear thinking, improved memory, focus and concentration. And that leads to more creativity for our dance.
Emotional Release: Our bodies often store our emotions, especially trauma and stress within our tissues and muscles. As massage therapy works on reducing areas of tension, it can lead to the release of these stored emotions as the body relaxes and “lets go” physically. This process is natural and facilitates emotional healing. Our emotions hold a lot of energy, so releasing them can increase our energy flow.
MIND-BODY CONNECTION: The mind and body are interconnected so what affects one will affect the other. Relief of physical symptoms will improve our mind and vice versa. So even though we may go for a massage to treat something specific, other areas will also improve, creating an overall sense of well being.
WHAT TYPE OF MASSAGE?
Therapeutic Massage: also known as Western or Swedish massage is a popular full body massage used for relaxion, relieving tension, pain etc. and the one I choose for myself. Others include: Remedial, Aromatherapy, Reflexology, Shiatsu, Sports, Deep Tissue and more.
Q & A:
How Often To Get Regular Massages?
I suggest monthly for general wellness. Injury and recovery may need more often. Budget and time commitment are factors to consider.
How To Pay?
Do you have insurance coverage? Can you barter or trade for services? What about a student massage from a school or training clinic? You may be able to get free or discounted massages. Do you have a friend or romantic partner to give or exchange massages with? Ask for massage gift certificates for birthday and other occasion gifts. These ideas can help you to plan a budget for your massages.
What To Look For?
Priority: Your comfort and overall experience
Length: 60 minutes is the standard, but some will offer shorter massages of 30 and 45 minutes and also longer at 90 minutes. This will change the price and also the experience.
Location: Is it in a quiet place with easy access and parking? Is the waiting area and treatment room clean and designed for your comfort. A soothing atmosphere is part of the relaxation process.
What To Wear: It’s your choice. But what you wear or don’t wear will impact the effectiveness of the massage. Sheets, towels and blankets will be used to maintain your privacy. For a full body massage, you could just wear your underwear (for women, bra is optional) or you could wear a tank top and yoga shorts as they are stretchy and easy to wash.
Who You Choose: Try different people if need be. Good communication both ways is essential. You need to speak up about why you are there and what you are looking for. Also give feedback during massage if you need something like an adjustment on pressure, change of position etc. Choose someone who listens to you, asks for feedback and provides for your comfort.
SUMMARY:
It is common for people to have a reactive approach to their health. When we have pain, an injury or an illness we go to the appropriate medical or health practitioner to get fixed. And when the problem goes away, so do we. What if instead we took a proactive approach to our health care? Massage benefits can have a cumulative effect and over time can create a significant impact on our wellbeing. Dancing is both an exercise and a sport. if we want to do it well, safely and long-term, we need to take care of our bodies.
Reference Book: Massage by Bernie Rowen
Kelly Picard Books 