Look for evidence that massage will improve your health, and you should have no trouble finding research to support it. From reducing muscle soreness after exercise to reducing stress, dozens of studies — dating back decades — have linked massage with real physical and psychological benefits.
An Australian study found that 10 minutes of muscle massaging after a workout can reduce pain by 30%. A separate massage study found that levels of the stress hormone cortisol decreased by 31% after rubbing, while levels of feel-good hormones like dopamine and serotonin increased by about 30%.
Research on different forms of self-massage, including foam rolling, has shown that proper kneading can reduce muscle pain and improve pain symptoms, even in people with osteoarthritis.
In fact, pain relief — along with reduced depression — is one of the benefits that research has consistently linked to massage, says Tiffany Field, director of the Touch Research Institute at the University of Miami.
Some of her studies have shown that massage can improve immune system function in people with breast cancer and leukemia, while reducing their physical and emotional pain. When asked how massage can have such many health benefits, Field said several fMRI studies have shown that massage increases blood flow to areas of the brain involved in regulating regulate mood and stress.
“Pressure receptors under the skin, when stimulated, increase vagal activity,” she says, referring to the vagus nerve, a major component of the human nervous system that plays a role in autonomic functions like heart rate, breathing, and digestion. Increased activity in the vagus nerve could have—among other benefits—a meditation-like calming effect, which would explain the drop in cortisol and other stress-related symptoms.
When you bump your elbow or knee and feel pain, your first instinct is to rub the sore spot, says Field. This serves as the "gateway theory" of pain, which hypothesizes that your brain is unable to adequately record pain-causing stimuli when associated touch receptors are activated. “This is another way pain might be alleviated by massage,” she says.
In terms of improving immune function, she says, the hormonal and nervous system changes that occur after a massage may protect the immune system's natural killer cells, a type of cell white blood cells that fight viruses and help stop tumor growth.
But all of this is controversial. Several review studies have found only weak evidence that massage is beneficial for pain relief. Plus, when it comes to proving that massage is good for you, there's one major hurdle that Field and other researchers have struggled to overcome: it's nearly impossible to design a massage study that eliminates the placebo effect. After all, no version of massage can compare to "real" massage to remove the non-placebo effects of treatment.
But most people only care if, no, how massage works. While this last question is indeed one for medical researchers, the available evidence indicates that, for a wide range of health conditions, it holds. (Some fetal studies have even shown that massage can promote vagal activity and growth markers.)
It’s still tricky to determine how much is ideal, Field says. “Most of the studies have looked at one massage a week,” she says. But there haven’t been many comprehensive studies comparing different massage frequencies. “I always say that it’s probably like exercise, where more is better,” she says.
Whether you can afford regular massages, or if you only have 5 minutes a day for some foam rolling, both should do you some good, Field says.
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