Massage As a Healing Tool

By Maria Claudia Marks, CMT

Massages For Healing, LLC

. http://www.massagesforhealing.com/

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Massage As a Healing Tool

In research we find that manual therapy was the oldest type of curing method ever used. It is undeniable that massage has always been a healing process. The first documented evidence about the benefits of massage therapy was found in Chinese writings from about 3,000 years ago. Other ancient evidence is seen in the writings of the Hindus, Egyptians, and Persians, proving that they all used forms of manual massage techniques.

The word massage has various roots. In Arabic “mass” = touch or feel. In Greek “massein” = knead or rub. Both cultures still maintain massage as an important branch of therapy. The father of medicine Hippocrates of Cos (460 to 380 B.C.) wrote in his memoirs that physicians must be experienced in many things, but most assuredly in the art of rubbing.

Doctors such as Ambroise Pare, a French physician in the 16^th century, praised massage as a treatment for various ailments. In 1813, Pehr Heinrick Ling of Sweden used massage as a manual therapy for athletes – specifically, gymnasts – leading to his development and research of soft tissue. Ling is credited as the founder of the “Swedish massage.”

In the twenty-first century, a period of scientific research with medicine as the paragon, evidence by noted psychiatrist Dr. James Gordon reported that “the massage is a medicament.” Currently, there is increased growth and interest in contact therapy. This trend has led to the creation of institutions that are dedicated to investigating this area. One such institution is the Touch Research Institute (TRI) in Miami, that has been investigating contact massage since 1982. In 1992, Dr. Tiffany Field's research established that massage, when used properly, is a “powerful therapeutic tool.”

Today, there is overwhelming evidence proving that massage works as therapy for various medical conditions. Having confidence in the massage method for therapy is important in the effectiveness of the treatment.

To understand the effects of therapeutic massage from the concept of the school of hipocratica griega vis medicatrix naturae, this refers to the capacity of an innate organism for healing itself. The hypothesis is not that massage cures diseases, rather, that it stimulates the natural mechanisms of the body to accelerate the healing process.

The art of the massage healing process starts with the effects of applying a physical phenomenon on the tissue, with the second step of transmitting a reflex to the neurons and stimulating receptors cutaneously that are located in the muscles, tendons, and ligaments that stimulate and activate the proprioceptor, located in the walls of the circulatory system.

Stimuli are sent by impulses to the central nervous system reaching different areas of the spinal cord, hemispheres and cerebral cortex. All these mechanism cause functional changes to the organism, helping to restore the body's well-being.