Covid-19 has brought with it physical health, economic, mental stress. You add to that political and holiday stressors and you have a large population that is stuggling.
Massage thearpy can provide some relief from all of that stress and in just 60 minutes leave you ready to fight another day.
Deep tissue and therapeutic massages have been commonly used to relieve stress. In deep tissue massage, muscles relax and relieve stress by stretching. In therapeutic massage, gentle pressure is applied on soft tissues to increase blood flow, which results in increase flow of relaxation hormones; dopamine, serotonin, and endorphins. These hormones are produced from autonomic nervous system as neurotransmitters. Serotonins help in preventing depression, endorphin is an anxiety relieve hormone and dopamine is responsible for good mood and motivation. The increased production of these hormones after a massage therapy relieves stress by increasing tissue elasticity and relieving the muscular knots.
Another benefit of massage is reducing cortisol levels. Cortisol is released from adrenal gland when hypothalamus is stimulated, and it increases anxiety and depression. Massage cleanse the harmful levels of cortisol from body and increases the production of positive hormones which reduce stress. A biochemical study showed that massage therapy reduced cortisol level by 31%, and increased serotonin to 28% and dopamine level was increased to 31% (Field et al., 2005). Another study found that a 12-week regular massage therapy reduced anxiety level by 50-percent and the volunteer experienced positive effects of therapy, even after 26 weeks of massage (Flannery & Flannery, 2020). So, massage therapy can be used to relieve stress caused by covid-19.
