Stress Relief-Get Off That Train! Part 2

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Today I want to talk about some more excellent forms of stress relief. Some of these things help with chronic pain as well. The first thing I would like to talk about are the benefits of massage. Many people think massage is only for stress relief but that is far from the truth. Massage is a wonderful therapy for many painful conditions including back pain. It does relieve stress as well so you kill two birds with one stone using this therapy.

Hot stone massage is one of the modalities that is used to help with painful conditions such as back or neck pain.  The heat of the stones helps to penetrate deep into the tissues. This causes the muscles and fascia to relax as it increases circulation to the area of the body that the heat is applied to. As discussed previously, muscles that are tense can contract and pinch nerves or cause them to be inflamed. By relaxing the muscles, the nerves can then heal.

Deep tissue massage is another modality that works extremely well for therapeutic purposes as well as stress relief. It is widely used for painful conditions. This type of massage gets deep into the tissues and manipulates them causing chemical changes in the body that signal muscles to relax. Some people however, do not tolerate deep tissue massage well such as people with fibromyalgia and may need another modality such as Neuromuscular massage or trigger point therapy.

Neuromuscular massage works on the premise that where muscles that are tense or knotted that there are trigger points. When pressure is applied to these trigger points relaxing them, this sends a signal to the brain which in turn tells the muscles to relax. Pain generators work in the same way. They cause trigger points to occur and they can be treated in the same manner.

Acupressure massage is a variation of acupuncture. It works on the same premise of acupuncture and utilizes the different acupuncture points. The difference is in the acupressure massage, pressure is applied to the different acupuncture points for a certain amount of time. This gives very similar results as the procedure acupuncturists use by applying the fine needles and inserting them into the points. This type of massage works by removing blockages in the energy pathways, once this has been accomplished the body is then able to heal itself. This type of massage works very well for stress relief or painful conditions such as back pain as well.

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I will have more information on other ways to relieve stress and pain in my next post which will be Part 3. So tune in for this!