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

How To Maintain Wellness Over 40

As a boomer, I am healthier now than I was at any point between age 17 (when I left home to attend university) and my mid-40's. When I recently summed up the reasons why, I realized that they all revolved around diet, exercise, stress management, yoga/meditation/therapeutic massage, mental stimulation, emotional connectedness/satisfaction, and finances. In fact, I would even put them in that order. And here's why:

1. What we eat seems to dictate how well we feel and how well we handle things - never mind all of the other associations connected to diet.
2. Exercise also has equal weight to food when it comes to being well - and this seems to increase with age.
3. Stress, or over-stress, is a wellness-killer. It eats up all of the mileage we get from eating well and exercising, so it has to be managed and kept in check.
4. Yoga, meditation, massage, dance, tai chi, and other forms of spiritual physicality are all tools to connect the mind and body and they all increase wellness.
5. Mental stimulation is not talked about much, but it's pretty well "use it or lose it" (use it and be well, or lose it and don't). Mental stimulation is more important for wellness than we think.
6. Emotional connectedness and satisfaction with oneself and others doesn't keep us well without the other 6 factors, but it plays a key role in keeping us well-balanced.
7. Finances are talked about a lot in this part of the world as an elixer to all troubles, but you can be a wealthy, top performing, emotionally connected individual who is positively challenged by your job and interests, but if you don't take time to unwind, exercise, keep your stress in check and eat right, these unattended elements will catch up with you. That's not to say finances aren't important, they are. But over age 40 the other key points start to matter just as much when it comes to wellness.

Stay tuned to Wellness Over 40 - we'll be discussing each of the 7 elements from the personal point of view of someone who found meaning and value in all of them. We will be telling stories of fantastic people and resources for achieving and keeping your own wellness, your own way.