This Morning: Kelly Brook gets massage in lavender field
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Everyone knows that massages are relaxing during the moment, but we don’t appreciate how successful massage can be as a solution to poor mental health in the long term. Express.co.uk chatted to Charlie Thompson, co-founder and Managing Director of The Massage Company to find out more about the connection between mental health and massage.
There are numerous well-known and well-established documented benefits to massage.
Charlie pointed out: “Some well-researched papers at the Touch Institute in Miami detail the benefits to the body physically, which isn’t just the muscles and the wellbeing of the physical body but also mental health.
“Massage has many benefits for the mind, and massage therapy will aid everything from stress to sleep improvement, as well as the general muscle aches and pains that massage is well known for.”
Massage reduces the amount of stress in the body and also increases the number of white blood cells we have.
Charlie explained: “This links not only to the number of benefits to mental health but also improves the immune system.
“A stronger immune system has a knock-on effect to the way the body feels about itself and then of course how we feel about our general life and health.
“Massage is quite often well known for aiding stress and less well known for preventing illness, but the latter is a benefit of natural massage.”
Massage can be expensive, depending on where you go and what type of massage you get.
However, you’ll only need a massage every month to begin with.
Charlie said: “How frequently you need a massage depends on your physical need.
“For example, an injury or road traffic accident or something which is a particular issue that needs fixing and quite often, so you might get a weekly or fortnightly massage for this.
“However, to improve mental health it does not need to be that frequent – getting a massage once every month will do the trick.
“Getting a massage every four weeks is enough to get on top of that natural feeling your body will start to create, depending on your lifestyle and whether you are mostly sitting at a laptop doing computer work or in a standing position all the time.”
The key to getting a massage to improve anxiety is consistency.
Charlie noted: “The body and mind will benefit hugely from getting a massage literally just once a month or every four weeks, as long as you stick to this.
“It’s not just about taking one or two and dropping off or waiting until the need has come past.
“It is very easy to forget what normal feels like sometimes and people live with a slowing increasing amount of pain or mental health problems without appreciating that they have been slowing declining for some time.
“Massage therapy helps us to get them back up to that original starting point and keep them there.”
There are a number of different technical types of massage that you might have heard of if you go to spas.
These are typically more holistic and use aromatherapy, and Charlie says these are brilliant for mental health.
However, firmer sports massage or something deep tissue will benefit your mental health in a different way.
Charlie pointed out: “The perfect massage for you depends on your own aptitude and your own preference.
“The best-known massage for preventing mental health issues is the Swedish massage, which is the combination of more relaxing techniques and effective massage.
“The way the massage is done, the accuracy and competence of a therapist is so important and that is why we always recommend anybody taking a massage really do your research on the therapist, centre or clinic to make sure they have good training.
“There is a variety of training across the UK and Europe, so check what training the therapist has before you book and put yourself in the right hands to ensure you get great results.”
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