Did you know that many health problems we face today stem from our body weight? One report from the Centers for Disease Control found that nearly 35 percent of Americans are obese, which means being very overweight. People who have excess weight usually benefit from adjustments to their lifestyle, which includes talking with healthcare providers about better nutrition and exercise habits. They must find a solution to reduce the risk of conditions such as diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, and stroke. Even people who aren’t overweight can live healthier and balance their lifestyle. What we emphasize here is that being healthier makes you wealthier, even if you don’t feel the extra coins jingling in your pocket.
The Background
We’ve all heard the saying: “We are what we eat.” Research shows that people with limited financial resources tend to have access to lower-quality foods, and they can still be overweight or obese even if they consume less than people with more resources. Regardless of your finances, adjust your lifestyle in ways that work for you. Give yourself time to eat right and to exercise. Look for affordable ways to relieve stress. One option is to schedule yourself for regular massage therapy, which reduces stress and makes you feel better.
The Benefits of Massage Therapy
We looked around for convincing evidence that massage therapy helps patients, and we liked this statement from the American Massage Therapy Association:
“Stress is a prevalent component in today’s fast-paced world which can negatively impact on an individual’s health and well-being. Massage therapy has been shown to be a means by which stress can be reduced significantly on physical and psychological levels. While massage therapists know from experience that massage reduces stress, there is considerable research that validates our experience.”
We have helped many patients find relief through massage therapy. Some conditions that massage therapy relieves are:
1. complaints of the spinal column, arthritis, fibromyalgia, and tension headaches.
2. arthritis
3. fibromyalgia
4. tension headaches.
How Massage Therapy Works
A massage therapy session is a transaction between a healthcare provider and a patient, just like when you go to the doctor for the common cold and ask for antibiotics. Talk honestly with the massage therapist about the pain and discomfort you are having, being sure to pinpoint the locations that are most problematic. Our therapists understand your needs and ask questions when we don’t. In a therapy session, you get time to relax and enjoy the skilled hands of a professional applying the therapeutic techniques specific to your condition. After the session, you walk away feeling better. The difference is that the transaction is holistic. You don’t leave with a script for a bottle of pills, but you have a spring in your step. You are under less stress when you leave. You can’t wait to return again.
Fighting Lower Back Pain
For many of us, a common complaint is low back pain. It affects us whether we are thin, normal, overweight, or obese. According to the American Massage Therapy Association, research has demonstrated that massage can decrease low back pain, decrease disability associated with low back pain, demonstrate decreased pain and disability over time, and decrease anxiety/depression associated with low back pain. These are powerful motivators for anyone with back pain to get into the massage therapy session. Working backwards, it makes sense that back pain could change your entire lifestyle and urge you to find relief. Pain puts you in a state of dis-ease, making it hard to sleep, which is at the basic level of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. It can make you feel less secure when your body doesn’t feel well, which is at the second level of your basic psychological needs.
Be good to yourself and get regular relief from stress, tension, and back pain. Massage therapy could be the answer that you’ve been looking for, especially if you already practice good nutrition and exercise habits.
