Up to 90% of all visits to primary care physicians are for stress related complaints such as headaches, backaches, neck pain, eyestrain, poor concentration, anxiety, depression, irritability, anger, high blood pressure, heart disease, ulcers, as well as, physical and emotional exhaustion.

When massage therapy activates your body’s parasympathetic nervous system, it reverses your body’s negative response to stress, causing your muscles to relax, your heart rate to slow, your blood pressure to lower and your circulation to increase.

Muscles can become tight and ineffective for many reasons. Stress, poor circulation, overuse, and misuse, can all cause you pain and discomfort as well as restrict your normal range of motion. When left unattended, these conditions can become habitual and hamper the quality of your everyday life.

Massage therapy stretches and loosens tight muscles, and connective tissue, breaking down and preventing further formation of adhesions, freeing your range of motion and reducing dangers of fibrosis.

When your muscles become tight, the muscle cells cannot hold much fluid nor can the vessels allow much fluid to pass through the muscles. This decreases the circulation of blood and increases the strain placed on your heart. Among the obvious problems that this can cause are muscle fatigue, swelling and the lowering of your energy levels.

Massage therapy releases contracted muscles and pushes venous blood towards the heart, thus easing the strain on this vital organ. This increase in circulation brings essential nutrients and oxygen to your cells as well as carries away metabolic waste products that can make you feel sluggish and drained.

Far too many of us face our daily lives with chronic pain due to injuries or illness.

Not only does massage therapy help to correct the conditions that cause chronic pain, but it also acts in two ways to decrease the actual pain itself.

The first is by the trained touch of a massage therapist activating the nerve receptor signals along myelinated nerve fibers to temporarily block chronic pain signals from reaching the brain. The second is by the stimulated release of endorphins (the bodies natural painkiller) into the brain and nervous system to reduce your feelings of pain and discomfort without the use of unnatural drugs.

The lymphatic system is a major factor in your body’s battle to ward off infection and heal injuries. The lymphatic flow is usually very sluggish in most people and especially so in those that have less active life styles.

Not only can massage therapy improve the circulation of blood and its vital nutrients, but also increases the circulation of lymph in your lymphatic system thus healing your body to fight off infection and speeding your recovery from injury and illnesses.

Contracted muscles can press on or pinch your nerves causing tingling, numbness, or pain.

Massage therapy relaxes these contracted muscles to relieve the compression on your nerves. Sensory receptors in the skin and muscles wake up bringing new awareness to areas that have felt cut off by chronic tension patterns.

Tension from everyday stress can disrupt your sleep causing physical and emotional exhaustion. This can deprive you of the precious energy needed just to face day-to-day life.

Massage therapy relaxes tense muscles and calms the nervous system, causing your body’s rhythm to slow down. When this happens, your blood pressure lowers, your heart rate settles, and your breath becomes deeper and more rhythmic, priming you for a perfect night’s sleep.

The sun, smog, poor diet, and the natural aging process all contribute to the drying, wrinkling, and general loss of the youthful characteristics of your skin.

Massage therapy dilates the blood capillaries of the skin increasing the uptake of vital skin repairing nutrients and speeding the removal of harmful toxins. This improved circulation helps to moisturize your skin improving skin texture while relieving dryness and itching.