Massage Therapy and Headaches

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What is massage therapy? There are two separate ways to approach massage therapy, from an eastern medicine perspective it is based more on energy within the body and holistic healing, whereas in western medicine it is more from a muscular physiology point of view. Massage therapy according Moyer, Rounds, and Hannum (2004) is “the manual manipulation of soft tissue intended to promote health and well being”. According to most people this type of therapy does the body good either way you look at it. Always hearing people complain about their head hurting and saying they need a good massage, does this actually work. Seeing people rubbing their temples and the backs of their necks when they have a headache makes us assume that’s what works, otherwise why would they continues doing it. Well let’s find out what experiments say.

Modern life is rather fast paced and requires quite a bit of physical and mental activity; this in combination with several other aspects puts our bodies under great amounts of stress. It is very common to have a tension in the triangular area going from the base of your neck and across the shoulders. This makes the shoulders raise and move forward. This often will constrict the lungs and makes the breathing become more shallow, which restricts the ability to breathe normally. Along with breathing issues it makes the posture worse which will make the head out of alignment this makes certain muscles have to provide more support of the head than normal. The back becomes tighter and puts extra pressure on the skull which pulls on the muscles where the head and neck come together and around the surface of the skull. This adds to some of the most common reasons people obtain headaches.

According to Trivieri and And...

... middle of paper ...

...ith these studies and my own personal experienced with massage and headaches I believe that massage therapy does to amazing things for headaches. I would recommend am good massage to any one with almost any time of headache.

Works Cited

Hernandez-reif M., Deiter J., Field T, (1998). International journal of neuroscience. Migraine Headache are Reduced by Massage Therapy received March 24, 2009, from EBSCO database

Quinn C., Chandler C., Moraska A., (2002). American journal of public health. Massage Therapy and Frequency of Chronic Tension headaches received March 24, 2009, from EBSCO database

Trivieri L. & Anderson J. (2002). Alternative medicine: the definitive guide. California: Celestial Arts.

Moyer C., Rounds J., Hannum J. (2004). Psychological Bulletin. A meta-Analysis of Massage Therapy Research received March 24, 2009, from EBSCO database

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