Massage Therapy, a great addition to your weight loss plan!
Ok, here is a hot topic, weight loss! I can’t even tell you how many times this conversation has come up and how many different answers there are to it, let me just say this, it never stops! Phew! The good news is that you don’t have to try every single system out there or every diet, pick one that works for your body chemistry, commit yourself to it and stick with it. The best news is that if you add massage therapy to your regimen, you increase your chances of success for weight loss! That’s right, I just said, get a massage (oh darn!) and increase your chance of success for weight loss! So, if you are still looking at this blog a little funny, let me appraoch it from a different way. If you add massage therapy in to your weight loss/exercise regimen you have a better chance to be successful and this is why. Massage releases several “feel good” hormones into your system, dopamine(makes you feel good and improves brain function), seratonin(a general mood enhancing hormone which also regulates body tempurature, mood, sleep, sexuality and appetite) and oxytoxin(another general feel good hormone also called the “hugging hormone”). The ones that are decreased are the ones associated with short term and long term stress and those include; epinephrine, norepinephrine and cortisol, all of these tend to lower the immune system and digestive and tissue repair. High Cortisol levels cause a number of issues such as high blood pressure, but for this blog, it causes weight gain. So, why talk about Cortisol, well according to a recent study, massage was found to reduce cortisol. Other studies have shown that regular massage reduces stress related issues such as high blood pressure and high Cortisol and helps keep them down. So, bringing everything together, adding massage to your regimen not only feels good, but, helps prevent injuries, reduces recovery time from working out, reduces your Cortisol levels, decreases your stress and helps you feel better about the work you are doing! Now, I don’t know about you, but, the way I look at it is this, massage is not only a great reward for working hard, it is essential to keeping in great shape for your mind and body! Click on this link to see a great diagram about The Benefits of Massage.
