For those battling chronic conditions like arthritis or fibromyalgia, there’s no seems to be no shortage of negative effects on the body.
From fatigue to chronic, crippling pain to trouble sleeping, these conditions persist with no one magical remedy to take the pain away. As hard as it can be, finding a way to manage that chronic pain is essential, if only to maintain a certain quality of life on a day-to-day basis.
Benefits of managing chronic pain include:
- Better, deeper sleep
- Better range of motion
- Increased levels of serotonin, which can naturally help reduce pain
- Decreased levels of anxiety and better moods
For those seeking a way to manage chronic pain, one way to do it is with massage therapy. Massage therapy can be a very powerful tool to relax a person’s mind and body whether they’re dealing with stress, chronic pain or something else. In fact, 92% of people have been found to agree that massage, such as deep tissue massage therapy, can be effective in reducing pain.
So how exactly does something like deep tissue massage therapy help people manage chronic pain?
There are many benefits of massage therapy. Massage can help relax muscles, calm your body’s nervous system and help calm basically every one of your body’s systems. Most important perhaps, massage can greatly help decrease a person’s stress level. When the stress level is decreased, pain is decreased. Chronic pain can never be fully eliminated from your life, but things like deep tissue massage therapy can at least offer some relief.
If you’re dealing with chronic pain, when it comes to massages you should get only as many as your comfortable with. If you’re dealing with the early stages of arthritis for example, maybe a weekly or bi-weekly massage is just what you need to manage your pain. If you’re dealing with daily crippling pain, a daily massage or twice weekly massage routine might be of help.
If you’re new to massage therapy, talking to a massage therapist beforehand can be beneficial. This way you can tell him or him just where your problem areas are for pain are. Armed with that knowledge, a massage therapist will know how to help you with your symptoms and use massage techniques avoid doing anything to aggravate them. They will also be able to recommend the best of therapy to treat your symptoms.
Depending on your type of chronic pain, deep tissue massage therapy might be the best type of massage. For other types of chronic pain, acupuncture might be the best thing for you.
For people dealing with chronic pain, therapeutic massage therapy can be a helpful remedy to manage symptoms. Making an appointment with a local massage therapist can help you on your way to pain relief and perhaps establishing a new routine for best managing your chronic pain.