After lots of posts about the holidays, NFL stars, and ethics in massage therapy, I want to return to a subject that I think this blog does best: the therapeutic benefits of massage therapy.
After all, massage therapy’s benefits to people’s health are great. Thus far we have featured blogs about massage therapy and its ability to alleviate trigger points, symptoms of old age, allergies, eating disorders, stress, and the list goes on and on.
Today I want to write about neck pain and massage therapy’s effectiveness in treating it. Not surprisingly, massage therapy has been shown to help relieve neck pain, something that a large percentage of us will suffer from during our lifetime. Similar to headaches and head pain, neck pain can be brief and acute, or it can be chronic and debilitating.
Fortunately, regular massage therapy can help combat this pain, chronic or brief. Because there are so many different kinds of neck pain, the frequency and length of massage to treat a client with the condition will vary on a client-to-client basis. Finding a skilled massage therapist who can determine the amount of treatment is key.
The type of massage will also vary based upon the severity of the neck pain. Altmd.com recommends four types of massage, Swedish, deep tissue, trigger point, and shiatsu, that are effective in relieving neck pain. Again, a skilled massage therapist should know the type of massage therapy, and the necessary frequency of massage therapy sessions, that will help reduce neck pain as much as possible.
It’s very easy to say that massage therapy is therapeutic, and leave it at that. It sounds redundant, and it is. But we must remember that massage therapy improves our health and lives in so many proven ways. A 1999 study in the Journal of Dance Medicine and Science (vol. 3, pp. 108 – 112) provides some clinical proof of massage therapy’s positive effect on neck pain, but we all have stories from clients, relatives, and friends – as well as personal ones – that help illustrate massage’s effectiveness in dealing with neck pain.
Please provide your own stories and accounts in the comments section, to remind everyone of massage therapy’s effectiveness in dealing not only with neck pain, but the many other kinds of pain, discomfort, and stress in our lives.