Massage Therapy Helps Relieve Anxiety

How does massage therapy help anxiety sufferers?  Massage therapy induces a relaxation response, which the University of Minnesota defines as "an involuntary yet predictable response of the nervous system" to therapeutic touch.  Heart and respiration rates slow, blood pressure and production of stress hormones decrease, and available levels of serotonin and other feel-good neurotransmitters increase.  In a 2008 study, massage therapy had "immediate beneficial effects" on anxiety measures in young adult psychiatric inpatients.  Other studies of populations experiencing stress-inducing situations, such as ICU patients or children undergoing bone marrow aspiration show massage therapy reduces measures of anxiety.  Massage therapy has advantages over psychoactive medications, in that it produces no unwanted side effects.  Talk to your doctor about adding massage therapy to your anxiety treatment program.  For more information about the benefits of massage therapy, please visit the Kiel Unger Massage Therapy website and blog.