Need to distress quickly? Relax with a Mini Head Massage. With your thumbs at your temples and fingers in a half fist, run your index and middle fingers along the eyebrows and then along the cheekbones and sinuses, feeling the muscles release. Using the tips of your fingers, start at your forehead and rub along your scalp, front to back. Repeat as many times as you like.

It’s true…everyone can benefit from a little bit of massage. The last few weeks of summer are a good time to relax and get yourself ready for the craziness of the fall. If Rex can do it, so can you!

Just in case you need an excuse to relax, we’ve got a great one for you. Friday, August 15, is National Relaxation Day. I’m not sure where this holiday originated, but I’m a big fan. I believe that if every day everyone took time out of their busy day to just sit back and relax, the world would be a better place. It’s not always that easy though. So maybe we need a National holiday to get us to slow down a bit.

Need some ideas on how to relax? Some of my favorite things to do are:

I’ll be working this Friday helping my clients relax, which is actually very relaxing for me too. What will you be doing this Friday?

I love the Olympics. I love that these games (generally) are about bringing different cultures together. I love the sportsmanship of the athletes and the positive message the Olympic games promote. I won’t be tuning in too much at 2:00 a.m. to catch what’s happening live in China, but I will be hitting the official Olympic web site a lot over the next two weeks.

The timing of the Olympics is interesting also because I just finished writing an article on exercise and massage, which is going to appear in Your Health magazine in September. I got some of my info on why massage is a good idea if you exercise from the Virtual Sports Injury Clinic:

You can bet the Olympians are getting a lot of massage right now. And you should too…even if your exercise routine over the next few weeks primarily consists of getting up from the couch to get another drink!

I wrote this article for the August 2008 issue of Your Health Magazine. Since almost 80% of the clients at Rejuvenations come to use to treat their chronic pain, I thought I’d reprint it here.

From western medicine to alternative practices, there are many therapeutic models to treat chronic pain and help you feel better physically. At our massage center, 80% of our clients come to us to help manage chronic pain. We know they get results because they tell us so. I personally know what it’s like to live with chronic pain, and how much massage and other treatments help.

But that’s the physical side of the pain. What about the emotional side of it?

I recently strained a muscle and was in terrible pain—pain added on top of the chronic pain I live with every day. I didn’t sleep well that night. After tossing and turning all night, I woke feeling stressed and irritable. However, I didn’t connect my mood to the pain until I had a massage. After 90 minutes in my therapist’s care, my mood was transformed, and that night I had the best night’s sleep I’d had in weeks.

When you suffer from pain—even minor, yet chronic pain—your body can’t relax. And when your body can’t relax and regenerate, you get stressed, irritable, cranky, upset…the list goes on. Chronic pain takes a tremendous emotional toll on you.

So what can you do? Regardless of what you do to treat the physical side of your condition, therapeutic massage can help address the emotional side of it. Studies show that massage:
• Improves sleep patterns
• Creates a general feeling of well-being,
• Helps release pent up emotions, and
• Reduces anxiety

As an example, let’s look at the chronic pain condition fibromyalgia. A study at the Touch Research Institutes, University of Miami School of Medicine, found that massage improved fibromyalgia patients’ moods. Another study by the American Fibromyalgia Syndrome Association found that patients reported sleeping better with regular massage: they began sleeping for longer periods at a time and had more restful sleep, thus improving their moods.

How often should you get massage to reap the emotional benefit? It’s different for everyone. What we do know is you’ll get better results if you are on a regular schedule—whether it’s monthly, weekly, or some other formula that works for you. Studies show that a half hour massage a few times a week has tremendous benefit. However, most of our clients with chronic pain come in monthly for 60 or 90 minutes. The best thing to do is work out a treatment plan with your massage therapist.

Massage helps minimize your physical pain and alleviates the stress and anxiety associated with it. When you feel relaxed, your emotional state will be improved and life will seem a little bit brighter. And that is something to really feel good about.