When people think of massage, they believe that it is a luxury, but nothing could be further from the truth. Massage is an ancient way of healing the body, and it is something that may be useful for your health today. You can use massage to relieve pain, alleviate anxiety and depression, reduce stress, heal injuries, and promote a general sense of well-being. Therefore, massage is not just something that you engage in to relax. It also does wonders for your overall health.
What Are the Benefits of Massage?
Production of Serotonin and Dopamine and Stress Relief
Massage has been scientifically proven to increase what are known as the “happy hormones.” Two of the happy hormones are “serotonin” and “dopamine.” As a matter of fact, dopamine’s other name is the “feel-good” hormone. Dopamine plays an important role in the brain’s reward system.
The reward system aims to cheer you on when you do something you need to do to survive. When you perform these behaviors, the reward system sends out dopamine, and you feel good.
Serotonin is another hormone and neurotransmitter that regulates your mood, memory, learning ability, digestion, appetite, and sleep.
The body’s parasympathetic nervous system, or PSNS, assists your body in recovering from and managing stress, and a massage activates this system. In their study, researchers found that participants who received a massage reported feeling less stress afterward.
Muscle Relief and Pain Reduction
Rather than focus on relaxation, deep tissue massage reduces muscle pain. It has even relieved the pain for those experiencing tennis elbow, sciatica, high blood pressure, plantar fasciitis, fibromyalgia, and sports injuries. Massage uses deep kneading to create intense pressure in your problem areas.
This type of kneading after exercise reduces the soreness in your muscles by turning off the genes that activate inflammation. It also turns on the genes that help your muscles heal.
Strengthen the Immune System
Massage strengthens the immune system in several ways. For example, the body has lymphocytes that fight viruses, but stress reduces these important actors. Massage, on the other hand, increases the number of lymphocytes that your body has to keep you healthy.
Stress suppresses the immune system, increasing the cortisol that runs through your system. Cortisol is a stress hormone, and when you are experiencing chronic stress, you have elevated levels of cortisol in your system. This is not good for your body because elevated cortisol prevents the body’s anti-inflammatory response from fighting infections.
Pain prevents your immune system from being as effective as it needs to be. As we have seen above, massage reduces muscle pain and leads to your immune system functioning as it should. Massage decreases pain, making it easier for your body to fight infections.
Higher HGH Levels
The pituitary gland is an endocrine gland located below the hypothalamus, and it releases growth hormones in short spurts throughout the day. The hypothalamus releases growth hormone-releasing hormone (GHRH) and somatostatin. GHRH stimulates your body to release growth hormone, and somatostatin inhibits its release. If you are healthy, amino acids, low blood sugar, exercise, stress, and sleep stimulate the release of growth hormones.
A massage can stimulate the release of HGH hormones. This is because a massage activates the PSNS, as was described above, and causes you to be less stressed. When less stressed, your body is more likely to produce HGH.
Better Sleep and Increased Energy Levels
Most of the HGH your body releases is released while you are sleeping. As a matter of fact, a full 75% of the growth hormone that your body receives is released at this time. Your body enters deep sleep four or five times each night to benefit from this. Fortunately, a massage increases your body’s serotonin, and serotonin regulates your sleep.
Massage increases your energy levels. Right after a massage, you will not notice this because your muscles will feel as if they have been worked. In this case, they have been worked because that is what your massage therapist was doing while he or she was kneading them. You may feel like you have worked out, but you will feel more energetic afterward.
Growth Hormone Deficiency
A growth hormone deficiency is when you have lower-than-normal human growth hormone levels in your bloodstream. This is the condition that we treat. We do not provide human growth hormone supplements for bodybuilders, and we do not treat children with the disorder. We address adults who may be experiencing a decrease in well-being, increased body fat, weak bones, muscles, or heart, or an increased risk of heart disease.
If you believe that you have low HGH levels and that this is the cause of your current ailments, fill in our form, and we will set up an appointment with you. To begin HGH therapy, you will need to have a blood test, and then we may give you a prescription. We may even be able to give you HGH injections online, so contact us today.
