How Massage Therapy Helps Limit Stress Levels

When you come to Jenna Baker LMT, you’ll find a variety of highly beneficial massage services. From deep tissue massage to injury massage and much more, you’ll receive all the comfort you need here through gentle, relaxing massage services aimed at targeting your specific issues with a unique approach.

Perhaps our most common offering is therapeutic massage, which can take on many different specific forms. Some use it as simply a way to relax and unwind, while others may use it to benefit several specific areas of the body or psyche. One of the most common individual reasons we apply therapeutic massage? Stress relief. Stress is a big factor in numerous chronic conditions, and can make diseases you currently have even worse in their symptoms. Let’s look at a few types of stress, and how massage can help.

Stress Types

In some cases, stress is a temporary event generally caused by outside factors. Think of sitting in traffic or being delayed for a plane flight, for instance. You can’t necessarily do anything about these stress causes, though you do of course have some control over the ways you respond here. In other cases, however, stress is chronic in nature – this means it exists over a long period of time and may be due to a larger accumulation of events and emotions rather than singular concerns.

For the purposes of massage, what’s important isn’t the event that leads to the stress, but rather how the body responds to the event. When the brain picks up stress, it naturally raises your heart rate and blood pressure while tightening your muscles. Over time, these actions can have a negative effect on the body, including creating or exacerbating chronic pain.

Different Massage Techniques

Depending on your needs, massage therapy can use varying techniques. We might use hands, elbows or even forearms for treatment. Helpers like oils or warm stones could be used for relaxation or stress reduction.

How Therapeutic Massage Helps

For starters, a massage functions as a break from the stress of a given day – a way to relax the mind and body. For many people, it also offers a sense of control, both over life and general health. And then there are the more specific health benefits: Massage can help manage chronic illnesses that are impacted by stress, which can in turn lower stress levels.

For more on how massage helps with stress, or to learn about our therapeutic massage services, contact the offices of Jenna Baker LMT today.