If you ever had headaches in your life, you know just how bad they are. They are that kind of pain (like tooth ache) that no matter how you sit or stand or move, won´t go away. The worst thing about headaches is that they are very common and can even happen to you several times a day. To avoid analgesics and pills, it is important to find a natural way to fight those painful moments. Read on and find out how massage therapy can help you live a better life away from chronic headaches and migraines.
Headaches and Migraines
Acute
pain in your head can even take you to nausea and will definitely
ruin your plans for the day. Other symptoms can be extreme
sensitivity to light, flashes of light, tingling in your extremities
(arms or legs) and blind spots. There are different types and also
different intensities of migraines. Some people might experience
sudden ache that will come and go while others have it for hours
regardless of what they do.
The kind that most people complain the most about is chronic headache or migraine. In this case, patients experience migraine and headache very often and for long periods of time. This condition can be not also very painful but also very disturbing for social life. If it is not yourself, you have a friend, or a relative who often is in a bad mood and that doesn´t attend to some meetings and gatherings because he or she is not “feeling well”. Well, the reason behind that might very well be migraine.
How can Massage Therapy Help with Migraines?
It has been tested extensively and most specialists agree that massage therapy can help with migraines and headaches. According to the professionals in The Touch Institute that belongs to the School of Medicine of the University of Miami, massage therapy lowered the amount and intensity of headaches that appeared in patients as well as sleep disturbances, distress symptoms and also pumped the levels of serotonin, an enzyme that is capable of reducing discomfort and generating pleasure.
Stress and Tension
Many
of the headaches and migraines are directly related to stress,
tension, worries and modern-life rush. In fact, one of the main
answers in every test made for this affection comes out with the word
“stress” written. It is well-known that one of the main benefits
of massage therapy is to reduce stress and tension in the muscles.
Well, that property is extremely helpful to alleviate the body from
headaches and migraines.
The level of association between one phenomenon and the other is so big that prestigious clinics like the Mayo Clinic advice their clinical patients to do something relaxing for the muscles and the mind for at least half an hour a day. This could help alleviate them from headaches and migraines after having rough days at work and/or at home. Also, high serotonin levels like the ones massage therapy generates in people can help cope with high levels of cortisol, the stress hormone.
Which are the Best Techniques?
The
techniques that can help you with migraines and headaches are plenty,
but here is a list of the most common ones.
Swedish Massage
Swedish
massage is great for alleviating pain in the back and the neck. What
we commonly call a massage is actually a
Swedish massage and when
performed by a specialist it can really help you get the muscles and
tendons in your back and neck loose and defeat the contracting pain
of stress. Without stress and contracted muscles, chances are that
the headache will go away too.
Deep Tissue Massage
Although
this is a massage that is more for high-end sports athletes, the
benefits of disarming long-term knots in your back are huge. For
people who have been under heavy stress for a long period of time and
also for people who enjoy deeper pressure on their skin, deep tissue
massage can be very relaxing. When you relax, your body releases
serotonin and hence, you combat cortisol (the stress hormone) and can
reduce your headache or migraine.
Reflexology
Reflexology
is an ancient art and it is based upon the belief that every part of
our body is connected to each other. This means that if a part of
your body hurts, you can have a massage in another part and heal that
pain. In this specific case, you can ask the massage therapist to
focus on your head points and rub them until you stop feeling the
pain you are under.
Reflexology
massage is mostly applied to feet and hands and by pressing technical
points in them addressing the whole body. According to recent studies
carried on with a small group of adult people who were experiencing
chronic headaches, reflexology could diminish their headaches in more
than 50%. The subjects attended to reflexology sessions two to three
times a day for six months. As a result of this experiment, subjects
who used to experiment 7 headaches a week reduced them to an average
of two. Also, the average length of the headache decreased in time to
half (from eight hours average to four hours average).
Reflexology is the most effective of the three massage types presented here. By pressing the right points in your hands and feet, massage therapists can relieve headache directly without going for the contractures or knots in your back or the overall stress levels.
Conclusion
The
causes of chronic headache or migraine are plenty and for each person
it might be a different combo. Perhaps you are having a rough time at
work or there is a new baby at the house, or you are under a lot of
competition or academic pressure. Whichever the reason, it is
important to know that there is a natural cure for that without
taking a single pill and it is massage therapy. Go to a certified
masseuse or a spa and get rid of your chronic migraine once and for
all.
Head massage with oil can reduce the headache faster than the medicine