SeaRhythms Massage – Charlottesville, VA

Massage News Blog from Tammy Dudley Mundy, Certified Massage Therapist at SeaRhythms Massage in Charlottesville, VA

Why you need a massage, and what to do when you can’t get one

Posted on | June 11, 2010 | 1 Comment

There are many reasons why you might seek out a Massage Therapist.  Here are a couple very general scenarios almost everyone can relate to.

At times, we can simply become so stressed from life’s worries — tense all over, mind racing, hunched shoulders, stress headaches, general aches and pains, and much more – that we just need someone to provide gentle, relaxing TLC through human-to-human touch. As little as 10 or 15  minutes of nurturing, gentle, flowing massage can send your mind straight to the Alpha state, clear your worries, relax your body, and bring you back to a state of emotional and physical balance.

Other times, especially when general tension has been part of your life for a long time or there has been an injury or strain, you may also have structural imbalances, muscle spasms, and serious pain, among other symptoms.  This condition will require not only a nurturing human touch, but also skilled manual manipulation to release those areas of chronic tension, encouraging the body to send nutrient-rich blood flow to repair tissue damage, and to bring an overall deeper level of balance and harmony and healing.

A well-qualified massage therapist will be able to use both these forms of therapeutic touch seamlessly, moving effortlessly from soothing, flowing, nurturing touch to a more focused deep tissue release, and back again.  She will also have an intuitive sense of which is needed and when.   She will be familiar with your anatomy, having a thorough understanding of where those excruciating trigger points are, where those muscles and connective tissues are bound up and pulling at you painfully.  She’ll know how to release them, flush out the metabolic waste, and bring sweet relief to the problem areas, all integrated together with a nurturing touch that will leave you feeling peaceful and relaxed, in order to begin a true healing process.

Ideally, a professional massage is what you need when you are experiencing either of the above scenarios. Nothing can provide the total relaxation that is possible when you can simply lie still and allow your body to passively receive therapeutic massage.

However, sometimes you just can’t get to a therapist, whether it be for financial reasons, time constraints, or other limitations.  The good news is that, while a professional Massage Therapist is an expert in providing manual therapy to her clients, YOU are the expert in what feels good to you!  And you can use your particular expertise to help yourself when, for whatever reason, you can’t see a skilled therapist.

Here’s what to do when you can’t see a therapist

If you have non-chronic stress and just want to relax, do as I did as child.  Find someone you love to sit with you and rub your back in a gentle and nurturing way.  This will do wonders for you, I promise!

If you have more chronic tension, and painful areas that need deeper work, you have a couple of options. First, you could ask someone you know and love to rub the the parts that hurt a little more vigorously, or ask them to press their elbow into a sore spot.

This will likely help a great deal, but you may need even deeper, more focused work to really help yourself feel better.  If that is the case, you will probably want to massage yourself, so that you can control the amount of pressure and the length of time you spend on an area, using your unique expertise in what feels good to YOU.

My favorite tool for self massage is a tennis ball.  While you can easily reach areas like your arms and legs with your own hands, it is virtually impossible to reach the back of your body to massage effectively.  And the fact is, most chronic tension is stored in the shoulders, along the spine, and in the hips and buttocks.  These are the places that can most benefit from deep massage, and you can get to them by rolling around on the floor on top of a tennis ball.

The tennis ball takes the place of a therapist’s thumb or elbow, and your control of how deeply you push the tennis ball into your muscle tissues, according to what feels good and therapeutic to you, provides the expertise. Simply place the ball on the floor, lie down and position yourself over the tennis ball at one of your sore spots, maybe your shoulder blade or the top of your hip on your lower back.  Then simply push your body into the ball for deeper pressure, or raise yourself up a bit for lighter pressure.

Roll around on it if you like, to create a massaging action, or stay still for static pressure which can sometimes release a spasm.  Move yourself over the ball so it rolls along your shoulder blade, or along side your spine, or over your hips and buttocks and lower back.  What feels good?  That is your guide.

Again, this will not totally take the place of a professional massage. After all, you will have to be actively engaged in the process, and will not be able to fully relax.  But it is a good substitute when you simply can’t get to a therapist.

Try it, and let me know how it works for you!

Category: Health Related Articles

Comments

One Response to “Why you need a massage, and what to do when you can’t get one”

  1. Myrna
    June 11th, 2010 @ 2:19 pm

    I have had many, many massages,, and the one that I got from Tammy at SeaRhythms was one of the very best EVER!!! LOVED it!! Going for another on Tuesday!!

Leave a Reply





About

Tammy's Massage Blog!
SeaRhythms Massage
Charlottesville, VA

Hours & Locations
Pricing

Main site at: www.SeaRhythms.com

Tammy Dudley Mundy
Certified Massage Therapist

Tammy Dudley, CMT
(434) 409-3817
tammy@massagecharlottesville.com