Massage Therapy is a Great Way to Stay Healthy and Manage Stress

Be Proactive About Wellness & Stress Management

As the autumn gets underway and work and family stresses build up again, massage therapy can go a long way toward maintaining your wellness and helping manage your stress levels. Whether you are in pain or just want to relax, regular massage therapy can help you achieve greater wellness.

Along with mindful meditation and yoga, massage therapy is an effective way to improve blood flow and breathing, give you an increased sense of well-being, and increase your range of motion. 

In Canada, a Great Place to Get a Massage is LifeMark Health

A couple of weeks ago I had a very restorative experience at a LifeMark clinic on Bathurst Street in Toronto, which is right near my neighbourhood. LifeMark has around 100 locations across the country that offer different health and wellness services. Their experts work holistically in the areas of physiotherapy, massage therapy, cancer rehabilitation, dizziness and imbalance, and more. 

I hadn't had a massage in 8 months. While it was no surprise that my sedentary job with my right hand on a mouse all day was the culprit in the severe tightness of my rotator cuff muscles, it felt fantastic to have them worked on. I was told that these muscles are overworking to keep me in balance while I'm manipulating a computer mouse for seven or eight hours a day. (Why can't hardware companies invent a replacement for the mouse so that we can work without causing harm to our bodies, especially as we age?...).

Improving Your Immune System With Massage

Many people don't know that a massage also strengthens your immune system. According to Holistic Medical Massage:

Your immune system is affected by your emotional state—whether you are elated, angry, fatigued, or stressed. Stress actually decreases natural defenses resulting in less efficient and slower healing, and a greater susceptibility to infection.

So how does massage help your immune system? Massage therapy boosts immune system by stimulating “natural killer cells” Since therapeutic massage decreases cortisol that destroys natural killer cells, your immune system gets a boost. An increase in white blood cells and natural killer-cell activity better prepares the body to fight off possible invading cells. Massage even boosts immunity in those people with severely compromised immune system, such as breast-cancer patients.

Taking Time Out For Yourself

Individuals who have health insurance coverage through their employment can be entitled to up to 6 registered massage therapy sessions annually, depending on their plan and the price of the services. The idea is that you don't wait until you're super tense and stressed out to go - instead, you go for a massage every couple of months for proactive health maintenance, incorporating it into your routine just like you go for a regular haircut, work out, walk regularly, and take time out of your routine just for yourself.

Check out these articles to find out more about how massage therapy can help you:

Benefits of Massage Therapy

Types of Massage

Massage and Anti-Aging

Climbing Dubrovnik Steps For Health

Climbing the Steps of Dubrovnik: an Adventure in Health

Looking at Dubrovnik's Old Town and the Adriatic Sea from Dubrovnik Steps

For any traveler, climbing steps in Europe is an adventure in health as much as a beautiful, historical wonder to experience. Just like doing a step class at the gym, step-climbing on real stairs or steps uses up many more calories than walking, is good for your heart, and is a quick way to get your legs into great shape.

An article by the Huffington Post describes how someone lost 96 pounds by climbing six flights of stairs a day, and the Times of India reports that in addition to maximizing your cardio efforts, climbing steps increases your core muscle strength, tones and sculps your body, and provides a good low-impact workout.

Walking Up the Dubrovnik Steps

Walking down the Dubrovnik Steps from Villa Klaic is beautiful!

The Dubrovnik steps to Villa Klaic, 15 minutes on foot (walking straight up the steps) from the Old Town on the Adriatic Sea  are a case in point. The first time I climbed them a month ago, it felt like a lot longer than 15 minutes. I was so out of breath once I got to the top that I could hardly breathe, but afterwards I felt fantastic! The second time I finished the climb I was slightly less out of breath, and the next day my legs really hurt. But when I looked around at all of the other 40+ women in Dubrovnik, I noticed that they all have toned thighs and are slender. Who wouldn't be, climbing those steps all your life?

More Breathtaking Scenes Walking Down the Dubrovnik Steps

Beautiful doors line the walls of the Dubrovnik Steps

Pondering the beauty of Dubrovnik while walking down the steps was truly breathtaking too. People's homes, gardens and terraces are all encased by thick 6-foot or 7-foot high stone walls. It is these walls that provide the entry point to the homes, and many homeowners took special pride in installing gorgeous doors.

Gardens inside the walls of the Dubrovnik Steps

Peering inside homeowners' open gates was a marvel. Fruits I had never seen grow on trees before were everywhere - lemons, oranges, olives, and something that I thought might be pomegranates...

Climbing Steps Wherever You Are

A view of Dubrovnik's Old Town from a different set of steps

It's easy to get sidetracked by the beauty you can see by looking across whatever scene you see when you arrive at the top of some steps wherever you happen to be. But the most important part is to just climb them.  Livestrong has come up with an interesting way to calculate how many calories are burned by climbing steps:

Divide the number of calories you burn per mile by the number of steps it takes you to walk a mile. The result is a unique-to-you conversion factor you can use to calculate how many calories you burn from the number of steps you take as you walk. For example, the calculation would look like this for a person who burns 99.75 calories per mile and walks a mile in 2,200 steps:

Conversion factor = 99.75 calories per mile / 2,200 steps per mile = 0.045 calories per step