What Is Swedish Massage Therapy?

What Is Swedish Massage Therapy? Benefits While some people think of fancy salons and spas when they here the name Swedish Massage Therapy, it is simply a method of massage that is readily available even in the office of a chiropractor.

There are many benefits associated with a Swedish massage and we will explore some of them here. Swedish massage is one of the most common forms of massage in the USA and is quite the standard.

It is also known as a therapeutic type massage and is an overall method that helps the whole body.

So what is Swedish massage exactly? Simply a set and variety of techniques or methods that help to achieve relaxation of the muscles and to help achieve a better and increased rate of circulation.

The main use or purpose of Swedish massage is: helps to release toxins from the bodys muscles, helps to increase oxygen flow.

How is this massage method applied? Basically the Swedish massage utilizes techniques that apply stokes with pressure applied in the direction as the blood would flow as it returns to a persons heart. The pressure is applied to bones and muscles with various types of techniques.

These techniques are:

• Shaking motions
• Tapping
• Friction
• Effleurage
• Vibration
• kneading
• Long strokes

Each of these methods or techniques of massage has a stroke that can offer benefits in different ways.

And these can be further defined as 5 main strokes such as:

1. Gliding which is called Effleurage
2. rubbing which is called Friction
3. kneading which is called Petrissage
4. pounding which is called Tapotement
5. shaking which is called Vibration

First the therapist would attempt to concentrate on relaxation which would utilize gliding the palms, fingertips, or thumbs. This would be the Effleurage stroke.

Further they would use kneading with the fingers, thumbs, or hands and this would be the Petrissage stroke. Along with this, the therapist would use lotions and or oils to help the process.

The process usually involves a body massage covering the whole body that ranges from between 1 hour to 1.5 hours.

With the Effleurage stroke, the goal is to find the muscles that are tense and this gives a person time to get comfortable as they lie face down and are massaged from the neck all the way down the back to the end of the spinal column.
  

Quick Facts About Massage Therapy The emotional benefits Of Massage Therapy Massage is pleasant. Hardly a revelation, but it's important to remember this when we delving into the medical literature, or into heated debates over the benefits of massage. The good feeling that you get after a massage is hard to test and quantify, but no less real for that. Since it is so difficult to conduct controlled studies of something as personal and subjective as wellbeing, clinical studies will commonly flatten the experience of patients down to something that they can attach a number to. Thus we get indexes of factors like 'anxiety' and 'depression' which give us some information, but scarcely capture the entirety of the benefits of massage. In any case, massage therapy does, it seems, reduce anxiety and depression. It also has some effect on the experience of pain. It can't necessarily reduce the immediate feeling of pain, but over the course of a series of massages patients report lower overall pain.

While with the Petrissage stroke, the therapist is striving for the achievement of a deeper relaxation and works to Warm-Up the person body for more intense massage.

This technique will involve the muscles being moved or lifted away and upward from the bones. This will help to figure out how much or how deep the pressure applied will need to be. This will possibly lead to other massage strokes that will allow for various benefits. 

• lowers blood pressure
• increases circulation
• The mind and the body will relax
• helps with digestion
• can help to relieve colic
• Helps clear up congested lungs by breaking up mucus
• helps to stimulate a slower breathing pattern
• improves muscle flexibility
• helps to improve the durability of the muscles
• helps to ease tension and stiffness within the muscles

Theraputic Massage Terms and Facts. Because of the expense and effort of massage, it is mostly confined to a small range of animals: beloved family pets, and racehorses. Racehorses in particular benefit greatly from massage, for much the same reasons that allow human sportswomen to benefit so much from it.  Racehorses have large amounts of muscle, are trained and exercised to the peak of their capacities, and then compete in races which cause injury and tissue damage. Equine massage can improve blood circulation, reduce muscle spasms, and generally help to prepare a horse for a race.