Massage therapy, when done by a professional & experienced therapist, is a great way to rejuvenate both the body and mind. Massage therapy has started to gain greater popularity in recent years as we start to understand more and more about its health benefits. Our immune system is our first and most important line of defence, and taking care of it is critical! Frequent massage therapy can bolster your immune system.
What are the Benefits of Massage Therapy?
Massage therapy leaves you feeling great, helps overcome the stresses placed on the body and leaves you feeling rejuvenated for the days ahead. There are very few things in life that can compare to a luxurious massage experience, wherein you are allowed to lie back, relax and bask in the pampering that your therapists provide.
Massage therapy, however, is not simply about pampering. It also provides several health benefits that are essential to your physical well-being, both in the short term and in the long term. Some of the health benefits that massage offers include:
1. Reduced muscle tension: Massage helps stretch your muscles, which helps relieve muscle tension, and increase elasticity. Certain schools of thought believe that this can help reduce the risk of muscle-injuries, such as a hamstring, calf or back injury.
2. Improved Circulation: Massage therapy has the direct benefit of improving circulation to the affected area. For example, a back massage will increase the circulation of blood to your back, helping it to recover from wear and tear at a far quicker rate than would have otherwise been possible. An added bonus, as a result of the improved circulation, is an improvement in skin tone!
3. Improved joint mobility and flexibility: As discussed above, massage therapy helps stretch your muscles and reduce the risk of a muscle injury. Another benefit of stretching the muscles is that it also helps improve the mobility and flexibility of the connected joints.
4. Stimulation of the Lymphatic System: Our lymphatic system is responsible for the drainage of waste and toxins from our body. It achieves this result by circulating and draining the lymphatic fluid from the body. Unlike the circulatory system which has the heart to pump blood, the lymphatic system has no pump. Certain massages, such as our detox massage, are designed to stimulate the lymphatic system and aid the body in draining it of these toxins, by massaging the body in a manner that stimulates the movement of the lymphatic fluid.
Improved circulation, combined with the release of toxins from the body, actually has a positive impact on the immune system, as you are ridding the body of toxifying elements, while at the same time increasing the activity of white blood cells, which are responsible for the body’s health and well-being.
What a lot of people do associate with massage is one of its most well-known side effects- that it helps to reduce stress. But how exactly does a massage do that?
How a Massage can help Reduce Stress
Traditional Chinese Medicine (as well as conventional wisdom) has long considered massage to be a great way to reduce stress. Over the last few decades, Western medicine has also begun to research the wondrous ability that a massage has to make stress almost melt away.
Turns out, it isn’t quite as wondrous as we all thought. A massage tends to simply increase the levels of serotonin and dopamine, while lowering cortisol levels. Cortisol is responsible for an individual’s fight or flight reaction, meaning that cortisol stresses your body and your muscles to ensure that they are capable of reacting to what your body perceives to be a stressful situation. It is even nicknamed the stress hormone! Lowering the cortisol levels sends the signal to your body that the stressful situation is over and that it can relax now.
Dopamine, on the other hand, is a neurotransmitter that signals a pleasurable activity. Nearly all pleasurable activities are said to involve the release of dopamine. This means that the release of dopamine during the massage also signals pleasure, which in turn further relaxes the body, especially when coupled with the lowering of cortisol levels.
Given the current situation with the ongoing pandemic, any activity that helps reduce our stress levels is a welcome relief. If it can also help reduce our chances of falling ill by boosting our immunity, then it’s something we should all be doing.
So what are you waiting for? Book your appointment at one of our service centres at Al Safa, JBR, Village Mall and Beach Center Dubai today!
Things to Know Before your first visit to a Massage Center
There isn’t much planning that needs to be done before you visit one of our luxury spas in Dubai. You dont require any sort of paperwork or identification proof. However, it is critical that you inform the team of any pre-existing medical conditions you may have that our team needs to be kept in mind or could get aggravated during the massage therapy.
Another important point to keep in mind is the fact that certain massages can be painful. It is important to ensure that your therapist tailors the massage to your pain thresholds, but this will only happen if you inform the therapist about what that threshold is.
Certain massages, such as our slimming massage, are slightly painful by design in order to help achieve the ultimate goal of slimming and toning your body through massage. This is something to keep in mind when deciding upon which massage you’d like to choose.
