More Complementary & Integrative Healthcare Articles
Is Beauty a Symptom?
How is beauty measured in our world today? How does a child measure beauty? Is it the clothes we choose, the shoes we wear, or the style of our hair? Or is beauty a sense of health, a peacefulness, an inner beauty? Seen in others as kind and positive words and actions; is that beauty?
Do you feel healthy,balanced, vibrant? Or did you let life drag you through, maybe saying or doing something you later regretted? Have you shared your inner beauty with someone today?
It can be so easy to let life take you along for the ride. This leads to more and more stress, which left un-checked, takes you further and further away from optimal health,your inner beauty. High stress levels show all over your face. Insomnia is a common effect of negative stress levels. Other common symptoms of destructive stress levels include back/neck pain, anxiety, headaches, carpel tunnel syndrome as well as piriformis syndrome just to name a few. Stress can be expressed through various negative emotions and can even trigger skin “break-outs.”
Regular massages are proven to help you restore balance by reducing the negative effects of stress. Decreasing the stress hormone (cortisol) causes a leveling in the nervous system (parasympathetic vs. sympathetic mode or “high” gear vs. “low” gear). We are designed to run in “low” gear a majority of the time. Too much time in “high” gear causes extreme amounts of stress hormones that disrupt your nervous system's function. A recent article in the New York Times (9/20/10) states the following when referring to a test group of 29 people following a 45 minute therapeutic massage therapy session; “(they) experienced significant decreases in levels of the stress hormone cortisol in blood and saliva, and in arginine vasopressin, a hormone that can lead to increases in cortisol.” Research is moving forward in helping us to understand the physical changes that massage therapy causes. Understanding that massage not only makes us feel wonderful but happens to contain numerous health benefits is important.
Integrating massage therapy into your health regime may very well be one of the best kept beauty secrets. Beauty is a symptom of good health.
Be healthy, be well, be beautiful.
