Everyone loves a good massage. The relaxing of your muscles, the slowing of your breathing, the feeling as your aching body is pressed and kneaded back into its original flexible self. So just how good are these massages for you?
Getting a massage causes your muscles to unclench, a racing heart rate to slow, heightened blood pressure to fall, and levels of cortisol, a stress hormone, to drop. “Cortisol suppresses the immune response,” said Roberta Lee, MD (Dworkin-McDaniel para. 1). That means the more cortisol in your body, the weaker you immune system is. So basically, the less cortisol the better.
Based off of that information, getting massaged can even improve your immune system. “Anything that increases the relaxation response triggers the restoration of your immune response,” Lee explained (Dworkin-McDaniel para. 2). Restoring your immune response is a good thing that can keep you healthier by being able to fight off more illnesses.
Researchers conducted a study where they measured the immune function in healthy adults who got either a 45-minute Swedish massage or lighter touch massage. The massaged group had substantially more white blood cells, which can help fight viruses and other pathogens. The massaged group also had fewer types of inflammatory cytokines, which are associated with autoimmune diseases (Dworkin-McDaniel para. 3). In summary, getting massages potentially makes you healthier.
Lead study author Mark Rapaport, MD said “it’s not an unreasonable speculation” to wonder whether regular massages could actually keep you from catching a cold. However, for now, it’s too soon to tell.
Works Cited
Dworkin-McDaniel, Norine. “Touching Makes You Healthier.” CNN. Cable News Network, 05 Jan. 2011. Web. 03 Dec. 2014. <http://www.cnn.com/2011/HEALTH/01/05/touching.makes.you.healthier.health/>.
I can only dream of getting a real massage. I could use one right now! I did not know that massages helped improve your immune system. Yet, in the study I think it would be really important to state the health conditions of the people who are getting the massages. Then you can see just how much of a benefit you are getting from a massage. I did not see an exact number of how many people who are in the study. A sample size could affect what the outcomes are. Bigger the sample size the better. Like previous comments stated correlation does not equal causation. In this website, http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/weekend/health/doctors/2013/12/20/benefits-of-massage-therapy/4137819/ , it even says that massages can help women with breast cancer! As long as the massages are done correctly, I can totally see the benefits stated!
This is a great post. Massages are extremely relaxing, but I never thought about the health aspect of it. I now know that it can enhance your immune system which is very interesting. Something you should have mentioned was to be careful with massages. I know that massages can potentially damage your body if you’re not doing it correctly. This means that if you don’t have a professional massaging you, you could damage different nerves in your body. I read about this here: http://disabilityhappens.com/deep-massage-can-damage-nerves.html
Awesome post nonetheless!
Very interesting blog post! I love getting massages so this immediately caught my eye. I agree that there must be health benefits to getting massages, but I think the study you shared does not fully prove the benefits. The size of the study was not mentioned, so it is unclear if the study was big enough to be accurate. The link that is shown could also be due to reverse causation. It is possible that healthier people are more likely to receive massages. Remember that correlation does not equal causation. Overall, it was a very good post! I would love to do some more research to further the support on this theory!