and overdose have been a growing problem throughout the United States. Since the 1990s, when the amount of opioids prescribed to patients began to grow, the number of overdoses and deaths from prescription opioids has also increased. Even as the amount of opioids prescribed and sold for pain has increased, the amount of pain that Americans report has not similarly changed. From 1999 to 2016, more than 200,000 people died in the United States from overdoses related to prescription opioids. Overdose deaths involving prescription opioids were five times higher in 2016 than in 1999. (CDC, 2017) By the same token, the majority of people who seek massage therapy are looking for a way to treat pain, but very few physicians are prescribing massage therapy as a much safer option to try first. We can speculate that perhaps that can be blamed on the tight hold the pharmaceutical industry has on the health care system in the United States. There is less corporate profit to be made by recommending alternative and natural therapies to deal with pain. It is a constant uphill battle that we in the massage industry face.
even higher for children ages 6 to 12 years old (see Section 5: References for link to report). Those numbers indicate an incredibly high number of preschool-aged children being treated for anxiety. Additionally, many antianxiety drugs are believed to be addictive. These numbers then raise some important questions: Are our kids really that stressed? If so, are these medications being overprescribed? Why are they being prescribed? Whether we are looking at the symptom or the disease with these statistics, what we, as massage therapists, need to be promoting is our own profession as a component of the solution. This starts with educating ourselves, the medical community, and the general public. The opioid crisis that is happening right now in the United States is another medication problem to face, especially when you consider that most opioids are prescribed as a treatment for pain. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) stated: Millions of Americans suffer from pain and are often prescribed opioids to treat their conditions. However, the dangers of prescription misuse, opioid use disorder,
SECTION 3: HOW CAN MASSAGE THERAPY HELP?
integrated self-care plan. When you provide that ahhhhhhhh … feeling to your clients day after day, it can be easy to take the power of our skills for granted and forget about the tremendous impact we can have on our clients. In the following section of this course, we will discuss this potential impact as well as some dos and don’ts to maintain our professionalism. The other important element that massage can provide is human touch. As discussed in Section 2, touch is vital to humans as a species, and massage therapy harnesses the power of touch for targeted therapeutic purposes. As we saw previously, touch triggers chemical changes in the body by raising levels or oxytocin, dopamine, and serotonin, which can have a positive impact on the body and brain in a way that nothing else can. Numerous studies have shown the power of touch for assisting in development in preterm newborn babies and for improving cognitive function in elderly patients suffering from Alzheimer’s disease, as these are populations that may not be able to rely on language to communicate. Some populations can be deprived of touch as a matter of circumstance such as adults or elderly people who live alone. Massage therapy can offer touch in a safe, healthy way. When combined with purposeful and skilled therapeutic protocols in massage, the effects of human touch can also be tremendous for relieving stress. We see this in the difference in our clients’ posture and energy between when they walk into our office and when they walk out. This also has a positive effect on our clients’ ability to handle stress over time if they are consistent with their care. (The long-term effects will be discussed further in Section 4 of this course.) imperative that we know when and how to apply our skills for the best possible outcome on a session-by-session basis. A brief conversation with the client before she gets on the table should provide enough information for you to know how to proceed. Even a regular client that you see every week can have acutely stressful days, so it is important to check in at the start of each session. Do not assume that you should take the same approach every time.
Do you remember how you felt after receiving your first massage? You likely walked out of that session with the “ ahhhhhhhh …” feeling that we enjoy providing for our clients. It is an undeniably blissful feeling. Chances are, because you have chosen massage therapy as your profession, that your first massage was a life-changing experience. It is important for us to remember that feeling as we welcome new clients into our practices, and continue to be the voice of massage therapy for those who have not yet discovered its role as part of an What happens to the body and brain during massage? Getting a massage feels good, but why? What exactly happens in the body and brain to give us that feeling? Just as there is the stress response discussed previously in this course, there is also a relaxation response that can take place in the body during a massage. The relaxation response is the combination of neurological, biochemical, and physiological changes that occur when the parasympathetic nervous system takes over to create that ahhhhhhhh … feeling. The parasympathetic nervous system engineers the relaxation response, also known as the rest-and- digest response , triggering the opposite actions in the body as the sympathetic nervous system and fight-or-flight response. When the parasympathetic nervous system kicks into gear, the body conserves energy by slowing down the heart rate, and the intestinal tract is relaxed and allowed to function optimally. These changes also have an effect on the brain by altering the hormone and neurotransmitter levels in the body. “The relaxation response is a state in which your heart and breathing rate slow, your blood pressure goes down, your production of stress hormones decreases, and your muscles relax. The relaxation response also seems to increase the available level of serotonin, which is a chemical in the body that positively affects emotions and thoughts” (Burgan, 2016). All of these elements combined are a recipe for reducing the symptoms of stress and attaining overall better health. Acute stress versus chronic stress Because there is a difference between acute stress and chronic stress, the type of massage therapy we apply is different in those two situations. Acute stress is a response to a sudden or dramatic situation such as getting caught in a traffic jam because of a car accident up ahead or running late for an important meeting. Chronic stress is a response to repeated exposure to the same stressful situation over time—being caught in the same traffic jam every day as part of your morning commute. How we approach our sessions with our massage clients is different for each of these two types of stress, as the same protocol might not be equally effective for both. As professionals, it is
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Book Code: MLA1224
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