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Massage For Sleep
Massage For Sleep In a world where sleep has become such a precious commodity, could touch instead of a tablet be the recipe for better sleep?
Rebekah Delling, LMT, thinks so. As a child, she suffered from an undiagnosed anxiety disorder that regularly kept her up at night. Since then, she has been interested in the science of sleep.
“Sleep is something I’ve always struggled with,” says Delling, owner of Hampton Holistic Center in Ross Township, Pennsylvania. “Not only did I have much anxiety, but I’m also a night owl. I wasn’t sleepy at 9 or 10 o’clock. I was sleepy at 1 a.m. So I would have a hard time falling asleep. I would just lay there, and my anxiety would kick in.”
By treating her anxiety and improving her sleep hygiene, Delling could finally resolve her sleep issues. However, because he wanted to help others solve theirs. He decided five years ago to make optimising sleep the main focus of his massage practice.
“I think sleep is the next big thing in health, and massage is a natural complement to sleep,” Delling says. “People who don’t necessarily have trouble sleeping tell me, ‘I see many benefits in massage.’ I even sleep better. I hear it all the time, so that makes sense to me.
Sleep Misadventures
The American Academy of Sleep Medicine commends getting at least seven hours of sleep. Unfortunately, more than a third of Americans don’t. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It is associated with an increased risk of mental anguish and many chronic health conditions, including obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease and stroke.
Sleep is not only pleasant, then. It’s a necessity. “Sleep is essential,” says David Leopold, M.D., medical director of Hackensack Meridian Integrative Health & Medicine, the integrative medicine practice of Hackensack Meridian Health, New Jersey’s largest healthcare network. “Sleep is when our body maintenances itself. If you don’t get enough sleep, you compromise your ability to repair the damage that has been complete to your body.”
According to Leopold, sleep deprivation can also interfere with memory, impair immune function, and disrupt the body’s production and regulation of hormones and neurotransmitters. “If you don’t sleep, you mess up your whole physiology,” he continues. “It’s almost impossible to be a healthy person if you don’t sleep well and restfully.”
Of course, everyone experiences trouble sleeping at some point. However, when insomnia lasts more than a few days, what started as a sleep disorder becomes a sleep disorder.
Benefits of Massage Therapy
The National Institutes of Health have reported that massage therapy can reduce fatigue and improve sleep. Built on research compiled by the American Massage Therapy Association. Massage has been shown to improve sleep in infants, children, adults and the elderly. Such as people with psychiatric disorders, fibromyalgia, cancer, heart disease, low back pain, cerebral palsy and breast disease.
Anne Williams, director of education for Associated Bodywork & Massage Professionals and author of Spa Bodywork and Teaching Massage, says, “Massage helps people spend more time in deep sleep, the restorative phase in which the body barely relaxes. Associated with pain.”
There are many types of Massage, including common types:
- Swedish Massage: This gentle form of Massage uses long strokes, kneading, deep circular motions, vibrations, and tapping to help relax and energise.
- Deep Massage: This massage technique uses slower, more powerful strokes to target deeper layers of muscle and connective tissue. Usually to help relieve muscle damage caused by injury.
- Sports massage: It is similar to Swedish Massage but is intended for people involved in sports activities to help prevent or treat injuries.
- Trigger Point Massage: This Massage targets areas of tight muscle fibres that can form in the muscles after injury or overuse.
How is Reflexology Performed for Sleep?
The Massage begins with the left foot, a warm-up to relax the mind, the sole muscles loosen, and bones and ankle mobilisation.
The first thing work is the reflex zone of the diaphragm. Which is a muscle that goes inside the ribs, and it is an area that is blocked a lot by stress. When it is blocked, we usually feel like a stone in the stomach.
In the foot, it is below the toe pad. It makes a curve below the head of the first metatarsal to the outside of the foot surrounding the place. This area is loosened with the thumb while a wave is made with the opposite hand to relax it.
Conclusion
Massage is an innovative, healthy, and drug-free option that has helped many people overcome insomnia. Because melatonin influences the sleep phase of an individual’s circadian rhythm, a natural way to increase serotonin is a positive choice for inducing sleep. This connection requires more research showing the direct effects of massage therapy on serotonin and sleep.
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