General Info:
With over 25 years experience Linda can provide you Deep Tissue & Sports Massage, Cranlosacral and Polarity massages.
Muscles contract around any painful site to protect the area. If pain is resolved quickly, muscles relax. If pain persists, muscles can become habitually tight.
Sometimes tight muscles press on nerves, causing tingling, numbness, or more pain. Massage therapy helps by stretching tight muscles and by stimulating the nervous system to relax muscle tension.
Massage for Chronic Pain Improves Circulation
Tight muscles reduce circulation, letting waste products accumulate, which can leave you feeling fatigued and sore. Plus waste products can irritate nerves, causing pain to spread.
Massage therapy releases contracted muscles and increases circulation. As massage relaxes the nervous system, blood vessels dilate to increase blood flow. Waste products are flushed away and replaced with oxygen and nutrients.
Areas with poor circulation often develop trigger points-highly irritable spots that refer pain, tingling, or other sensations to other places in the body. Trigger points respond well to standard massage techniques.
Massage Stretches Muscles and Improves Movement
Eventually, the body lays down connective tissue in any contracted area with poor circulation. While helpful for healing injuries, this natural reaction can "glue" muscles and their connective tissue coverings into a shortened state. The stretching and kneading of massage therapy softens and lengthens connective tissue.
Summary
Irritating waste products, painful trigger points, and shortened muscles make even simple actions difficult and tiring. As your capacity for movement and exercise decreases, you lose the most important means for maintaining good circulation throughout your body, risking pain in new areas.
Massage for chronic pain helps restore normal movement by releasing trigger points, removing waste products, and stretching shortened muscles. Also, because you feel better after a massage, you may find renewed energy and motivation for physical activity.
Categories: Pain Management | Massage