Massage and Mental health

Massage therapy can give incredible results for treating mental health and help to overcome trauma. Of course, it is not meant to be a substitute for professional help, but it can be used to strengthen the healing journey.

Always many psychologists seek the help of professional bodyworkers; they work together to offer more effective and lasting result for their patients. Without the body and mind accessed together as a unit, it is impossible to deeply understand and heal trauma.

This happens because the mind and body are connected by a dynamic and complex interrelation. The body reacts profoundly in trauma; it tenses, it freezes with the aim to create numbness into the muscles affected in order to protect them from experiencing again that same hurtful feeling. This body reaction is so powerful that won't go away easily when the danger has passed, and this feeling of numbness gets stuck into muscles and organs becoming chronic, if not targeted and healed in the right way. When people are chronically angry or scared, their muscles will be constantly tensed which can lead to spasms, back pain, migraine, headaches, fibromyalgia and other forms of chronic pain.

This blockage into the body works as a continuous warning alarm; it sends messages of stress to the brain which will activate the sympathetic nervous system (SNS) that will prepare our body for the flee or fight response, in other words, it activates survival mode.

Survival mode can save our life during a threatening situation but it will burn off our organisms if constantly activated. Usually, our body knows how to swap from SNS to Parasympathetic nervous system (which reinstate regular process of basic body functions like digestion, wound healing, sleep cycle) when the threat has gone; when we're at our best, these two systems work together to keep us in an optimal state of engagement with our environment and with ourselves.* Unfortunately the balance is lost when the pain becomes chronic, and the body needs a little help to reinstate regular process.

Touch can communicate love, compassion. It has benefic effects on heart rate, slowing it down and allowing parasympathetic nervous system (PNS) to go in action. When our autonomic nervous system is well balanced we have more control of ourselves, we manage to stay calm and choose how to respond to stress instead of being in control of our emotions.

By Roberta