Whatshot
Massage reminds people what it feels like to feel good
Massage reminds people what it feels like to feel good
Date: 2019-09-20
The real story of how massage arrived at where we are today is full of countless surprises and interesting characters, much like a family history going back generations. We can see ourselves in our predecessors and, through understanding our history, recognize the forces that shaped massage as a profession.
In pre-Communist China, wealthy families hired physicians to keep them in good health. The physician was paid a retainer as long as his clients were healthy. If they became sick, the payments stopped.
Imagine!
There's nothing like that today, not in alternative medicine or mainstream. Everyone wants to get paid up front. Doctors have a bad rap for neglecting "prevention," but the truth is that prevention is just hard. All decent doctors do indeed try to convince their patients to take up healthy habits and quit the dangerous ones, but mostly it's up to us.
Massage therapy actually has some potential to prevent some serious pain problems, head them off at the past.
It's amusing that anyone would be surprised by the perceived potency of massage. Skillfully manipulating and stimulating all of your skin, muscles, nerves, connective tissues, and joints is going to have some kind of effect on an organism. How could it not?
Like the rest of you, a muscle is mostly water. It shouldn't hurt at all when you press on it. If it does hurt and it often does something is wrong. Stiff and sore muscles are sick muscles: they have a pathology called "myofascial pain syndrome." They are full of junk molecules, the waste products of metabolism. They are irritated and choking off their own blood supply, starving for oxygen, nutrients and clean tissue fluids, and unable even to exercise to save themselves. Massage can break this vicious cycle, pulling you back from the edge simply by squeezing sick muscles like used sponges.
Breaking that cycle is only one of the most basic physiological effects of massage, however. There are more mysterious benefits, more difficult to prove in scientific journals. Massage therapy works, in general, because it is a kind of passive exercise and stimulant for your skin and muscles enormous and complex tissues, with stunningly complex neurology. One covers us, the other holds us together and upright. If they don't feel good, we don't feel good. Massage wakes them up physiologically, stirs the forces that keep them fit and vital.
The human body is designed to work perfectly with a minimum of maintenance. The healthiest people alive are the ones who simply get plenty of fresh air, exercise, rest and high quality food. Give the body what it needs, and it thrives. Something else the body needs especially if the basics are missing is plenty of tactile stimulation. Unfortunately, we are all touch-deprived, and most people today suffer from a kind of numbness of the skin and deadness of the muscles. Baby mammals literally die without touch it is essential for the development of our nervous systems. We are tactile beings. To have this simple biological need answered is profoundly soothing, the sensation of relief so intense that it changes lives.
