Article Category: Health Issues
Added on: 03/22/07 19:42
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Over the years in the industry, I’ve observed that 90% of the Western male population still grossly underestimates the true magic and powers of massage. Although I fully understand that this may well be due to social conditioning and the impact of the euphemism for other, non-related activities that the word ‘massage’ has unfortunately become, I decided that it’s time for a turnover in this wasteful thinking.
Massage is one of the most powerful forms of physical contact whether in the context of intimacy or that of therapy. If done with essential oils, it is by far the most important application in aromatherapy, allying the therapeutic power of touch with the properties of the individual essential oils chosen for a particular person at a specific time.
Massage – with or without essential oils – can be described as a formalization of a very primitive instinct. If a child falls over, his mother will ‘rub better’ his bumped knee. If you or I trip over and bruise ourselves, our unthinking first reaction will be to rub the painful area. If we find a friend in a state of distress, we’ll offer a reassuring hug. All these are forms of healing, whether on a physical or an emotional level. The simple action of rubbing a painful part of the body encourages an increased flow of blood in the tiny capillaries just below the surface of the skin and this helps to ease the pain. A hug is a non-verbal way of communicating to a friend our sympathy and love that we may not be able to put into words in a crisis.
Both of these kinds of healing enter into massage. The masseur learns a variety of strokes, which are designed to relieve pain, ease tense and tight muscles, increase circulation, or benefit the physical body in other ways. These strokes are applied to those muscles visible below the surface of the skin, but the effects also benefit the deeper layers of muscle, and possibly the underlying organs.
Some forms of massage aim only to benefit the physical body in this way, but even so, general feeling of wellbeing will usually result, and the most important effect is the degree of relaxation experienced after a massage. Often renewed energy and vigour will follow this deep relaxation. The benefit of massage is cumulative: although the recipient will almost always feel good for some hours after a massage, regular massage will prolong the feeling of wellbeing for ever-increasing periods after each treatment.
As well as releasing tight muscles during the treatment, massage can also act as a form of re-education, helping us to become aware of the fact that we are tensing certain muscles unnecessarily, and to feel the difference between a tight/contracted muscle and a relaxed one. Very often we do not recognize the fact that we are tightening certain groups of muscles until we experience those muscles in a relaxed state during and after a massage. Although it is a perfectly normal reaction to tense muscles when we feel mentally tense, it is important to be able to let go of this physical tension before the tight muscles themselves convey a sense of discomfort and unease to the mind, thus setting up a vicious circle of tension. This is one of the ways in which mental stress can lead to real physical symptoms, but massage can break this chain of events, especially when we work with essential oils that have a calming, soothing, or uplifting effect on the mind as well as on the body.
Some systems of massage, such as Eastern massage, and various kinds of intuitive massage that have been developed in the past 30 years or so, take this link between body and mind further and aim to work mainly on the connection between the mental and physical states of the recipient of the massage. The letting go of physical tensions often leads to a release of emotions. This can relate to the present situation of the person involved, or to something that has been ‘stored’ in the body for a very long time. Clearly, a relationship of great trust and sympathy between the masseur and the recipient must be built up before such a catharsis can take place, and this building lasts over a number of treatments. One of the ideas inherent in Eastern massage is that by gently working on the physical surface tensions, deeper tensions will be enabled to come to the surface and eventually be released.
The variety of techniques used in massage is enormous, but I believe that it doesn’t matter too much which technique is used, provided that the masseur uses it with a caring and nurturing attitude towards the recipient.
From the purely physical viewpoint, massage is vital to aromatherapy because it provides us with the most effective way of introducing essential oils to the body. The skin absorbs these oils very readily and when the whole body is massaged a useful amount of essential oil can be taken into the bloodstream in a fairly short time. The oils are diluted in carrier oils. If it isn’t possible to carry out a massage of the whole body, then a back massage offers the next best possibility of getting sufficient essential oil into the body to have a therapeutic effect, since the back presents the single largest expanse of skin of any area of the body.
About the author:
The Light Bringer is the strong personality's choice bringing light to the lives of 35+ aged gentlemen across the UK. Visit her website at www.lightbringerinldn.com. To read more articles from The Light Bringer please visit http://light-bringer-london.blogspot.com.
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