The art of massaging has been practiced for many hundreds of years, perhaps even thousands of years (the Greeks did it as did earlier civilizations). When we look at ancient times and its relationship with our culture we can see that our culture is the result of a historical process that has been enormously influenced by the Romans and this includes their attitude towards massage and cleanliness (these two always seem to go hand in hand). This can easily be appreciated when looking into that typically Roman institution - the Roman Public Bath.
Ruins of Roman baths have been found all over Europe usually availing themselves of natural hot springs. The use of oils, myrrh and scents are recorded in ancient times just as their equivalents are used today. There were obviously reasons why our ancient cultural forefathers practiced the art of massages - and this meant much more than "it felt good".Mankind has enjoyed and recognized the benefits of a massage for a long time and this begs the question:
What are the benefits of a massage?
The obvious ones are:
- It helps us to relax.
- It provides relief from stress, both muscular and psychological.
These are perhaps the immediate benefits that most people will recognize intuitively and are in fact what we tend to look for in a massage. After a long, tiring and perhaps stressful day, what could be more soothing than a long, relaxing massage.
However there are other benefits that have to do with our physical well being and our general health. Massage effects have been studied for over a hundred years and some benefits that have been uncovered are:
- they help reduce the heart rate
- they help increase blood circulation
- they help increase lymph flow
- they help to lower the blood pressure
- they relax muscles
- they help stimulate weak muscles (as such they form part of the standard treatment for coma patients).
When you add up these benefits you realize that a massage is beneficial in many ways both physically, psychologically - and delightful to boot.
