Alternative and Complementary
Healing: Massage and Acupuncture
By: Michael W. Loes, M.D.
Instead of a honey-baked ham or a gift certificate to a book store, what about giving the gift of massage to a friend or loved one?
Did you know you can enhance the healing response with massage and acupuncture? Most of us could use a massage therapist – we feel stiff and knotted up in various parts of our body on a regular basis. These sensations can best be thought of as energy blockages, and are amenable to therapeutic massage. Movement will improve, and your internal energy will likely be sparked. This is because after a massage, your tissues are moving blood and lymph better and there is enhanced oxygen flowing through you.
Massage is special because a well-intentioned touch enhances the healing response. Whether it be from a kneading deep muscle therapist or from someone doing very gentle techniques to acupuncture points, massage interacts not only with the physical, but the mental-emotional spheres as well, and often the spiritual sense.
Research has shown that newly born infants have improved weight gain when they are touched, whether by the soothing arms of their breast-feeding mothers or a designated therapist assigned to the neonatal intensive care unit.
Vitality is our life essence, the aliveness of our personal self. Interacting with others, especially in the tactile discipline of massage, recharges our batteries, balances us, cleanses us, and gives us vigor.
A word of caution if you are a generous gift giver – some painful conditions do not respond well to massage such as rheumatoid arthritis, various skin and muscle conditions where active inflammation is present, or neurological conditions such as diabetic neuropathy of reflex sympathetic dystrophy.
A second caution is that some people do not feel comfortable having another person touch them. A few years ago, when I gave gift certificates for massage sessions to some of my professional colleagues, several did not use them. When I asked them why, the most common explanation was that they had never had a massage, and just didn't feel right about it. This caution is not only true for massage, but also for many of integrative therapies such as acupuncture, hypnosis, or even a session with an herbalist.
Did you know you can enhance the healing response with massage and acupuncture? Most of us could use a massage therapist – we feel stiff and knotted up in various parts of our body on a regular basis. These sensations can best be thought of as energy blockages, and are amenable to therapeutic massage. Movement will improve, and your internal energy will likely be sparked. This is because after a massage, your tissues are moving blood and lymph better and there is enhanced oxygen flowing through you.
Massage is special because a well-intentioned touch enhances the healing response. Whether it be from a kneading deep muscle therapist or from someone doing very gentle techniques to acupuncture points, massage interacts not only with the physical, but the mental-emotional spheres as well, and often the spiritual sense.
Research has shown that newly born infants have improved weight gain when they are touched, whether by the soothing arms of their breast-feeding mothers or a designated therapist assigned to the neonatal intensive care unit.
Vitality is our life essence, the aliveness of our personal self. Interacting with others, especially in the tactile discipline of massage, recharges our batteries, balances us, cleanses us, and gives us vigor.
A word of caution if you are a generous gift giver – some painful conditions do not respond well to massage such as rheumatoid arthritis, various skin and muscle conditions where active inflammation is present, or neurological conditions such as diabetic neuropathy of reflex sympathetic dystrophy.
A second caution is that some people do not feel comfortable having another person touch them. A few years ago, when I gave gift certificates for massage sessions to some of my professional colleagues, several did not use them. When I asked them why, the most common explanation was that they had never had a massage, and just didn't feel right about it. This caution is not only true for massage, but also for many of integrative therapies such as acupuncture, hypnosis, or even a session with an herbalist.