Massage has many benefits, the most commonly known being RELAXATION! Everyone loves to get a massage and just totally space out and let go.

But did you know that massage...

• Facilitates growth
• Increases attentiveness and learning, which has positive implications for thos with ADD, hyperactivity, or learning disabilities
• Alleviates pain
• Improves immune function (massage increases the number of natural killer cells, which has implications for those with AIDS, cancer, and viral diseases
• Reduces stress
• Promotes healing of psychiatric problems
• Assists in overcoming addictions such as cigarette smoking
• Supports effective digestion and breathing through stimulation of the vagus nerve
• Diminishes premenstrual symptoms
• Lowers blood pressure, anxiety, and hostility levels in people with high blood pressure
• Increases job performance (after a 15 minute chair massage, computation time with figures was cut in half and accuracy almost doubled)
• Reduces the number of headache days in migraine headches
• Reduces pain and increases range of motion in individuals with low back pain
• Improves grip strength, funtional activities, positive mood, self-esteem, and body image in multiple sclerosis
• Improves caregiver-child relationships for abused and neglected children

This information taken from "Mosby's Fundamentals of Theraputic Massage 2nd Ed" by Sandy Fritz