Healing With Massage

Massage is a therapy anyone can perform. There are very little chances of harming anyone except in rare cases, when a person is suffering from heart problems, varicose veins or is pregnant. With a little practice, it is very easy to bring comfort and relaxation to oneself and the partner. As with any therapy, using the right technique will take a little time but once you have mastered it, the basic strokes are very simple to perform.

Massage is a way of using touch to create a rapport between the practitioner and the receiver and to encourage and restore balance on a physical, mental and spiritual level. It is one of the few therapies, which have a holistic effect and encompass the physical, mental and spiritual orbits.

Through stroking, pressure and kneading, massage relaxes, stimulates or tones the body, affecting not only the skin but also the musculo-skeletal system the circulation, and the meridians or energy channels. It has also been found that massage aids the production of endorphins, body's natural pain-killers, which are produced in the brain.

Along with its technical qualities, massage is an opportunity simply to experience touch. The sense of touching and being touched, so greatly ignored in modern society is an essential part of well-being. By using caring and sensitive hands, the practitioner can bring about in us a sense of wholeness, from which our own healing energies can be released.

Basic Massage Techniques

Depending on the intensity of pressure, the basic massage techniques can be divided into three kinds of strokes:

• The light strokes.
• The medium depth strokes.
• The deep tissue strokes.

There are six basic kinds of strokes that come under the above categories:

• Gliding.
• Effleurage.
• Petrissage.
• Friction.
• Percussion.
• Knuckling.

With'in each of these techniques lie the different kinds of hand movements. Together they fonn formidable bunch of movements that is known as 'Massage'. Gliding and effleurage come under the category of light strokes, while Petrissage, which includes kneading and wringing forms M basis of medium depth strokes. Friction and Percussion are the strokes that are heavier strokes used for deep tissue massage.The light strokes like gliding and effleurage are warmup strokes, which help in relaxing and warming up the body.

Medium depth strokes work more directly with the muscle mass and help to stimulate the circulation. This action helps in clearing waste products from the muscles.

The deep tissue strokes penetrate into the deeper layers of the muscles, and into the connectiond tendons and ligaments to bones. Care should be taken, while using the friction strokes so that 1M receiver does not experience pain.