Why Does Therapeutic Massage Help You Focus Better?

When we consider the benefits of therapeutic massage, we naturally gravitate towards the effects it has on the body, how it can boost mobility, remove knots and reduce chronic pain.

However, this is only part of the benefits that massage has on the human body, as it can not only benefit the mind but also help relieve stress and even help your mind focus better during your day-to-day tasks.

One of the complexities of finding a scientific basis for therapeutic massage and its medicinal and psychological bases is that it is impossible to establish the types of double blind tests necessary for effective research.

However, despite these issues, there are several benefits that can be established that massage provides and has done so for centuries.

Massage has been used both formally and informally to treat stress and anxiety for an extremely long time, particularly when the anxiety is related to a specific problem such as a job interview, examination, work stress or ahead of invasive surgery.

The inability to establish double blind tests, given that it’s hard to create a placebo for massage, confounds a lot of studies, but it is believed that massage works to help cognition and mental health through three main functions:

• Decreased levels of cortisol: cortisol is the hormone most associated with stress, which is connected to both physical and mental health problems. Massage can help release and break it down, leading to an improvement in mood.
• Changes in EEG activity: an electroencephalogram records the activity of the brain and is typically used to diagnose neurological conditions. Massage can lead to noticeable changes that can help your mental health.
• Boosted parasympathetic nervous system: the parasympathetic nervous system (PSNS) is the system that helps calm the body down after stress, as well as helping with breathing, digestion and a natural heartbeat.

All these functions working together can relieve stress and stop the mental blocks that can stop you from performing at your best.