As stress from your busy life builds in your body the hormone cortisol is released, causing your muscles to tighten, fiber by fiber, until finally you have a big knot the size of a marble, or in some cases a golf ball. Or maybe your muscles go into spasm one night while you're asleep and you awaken only to discover that the muscles won't release their grip and you have a huge problem like not being able to turn your head. Maybe the untreated stress in your body will result in headaches, digestive issues, sleep disruptions, memory problems. Problems like these don't happen overnight, they are built over time. They're like a beaver dam in a stream, slowly stopping the flow of water, or in this case nutrient-rich blood and needed oxygen to your muscle tissue. Like a dam it often starts below the surface where you don't notice it until finally there's a major block that needs to be torn down in order to get things moving again. Isn't it easier to inspect the water for a dam routinely than to ignore it and take the dam down after the base has already been established and a problem has begun? It's the same thing with your muscles.
What's the biggest complaint we have as we age? The way we move! Something hurts, something is harder to do than it used to be, you can't do something you used to do anymore....it's all about movement. What moves us? Our muscles! The main purposes of a massage are to
A) turn on your parasympathetic nervous system which in turn shuts down your fight or flight response associated with stress, welcoming the healing assistance of massage and
B) to work those muscles. Rub them, push them, pull them, knead them, s--t--r--e--t--c--h those fibers, get that blood flowing, fill those muscles with nutrients!
Make prevention your priority.
