I will be writing a series on massage in 7 different sections over the next few weeks. I hope this will help you decide what would be best for your situation.

It absolutely amazes me how many people run their lives as though they have endless stamina and energy, and then when they have a difficult time relaxing or sleeping they’re wondering what is going on because they’re so exhausted. Often they retreat to drugs, sleep aids, exercise (which is great), hot baths or massage. It is the latter, exercise and massage, which will help the most.

Massage comes in many forms through varying therapists with different skill levels and doctrines. At last count there have been over 80 forms of massage defined so it can be difficult to ‘pin’ down massage into a simple description. But we can agree on this: Massage is the art of utilizing one or more parts of the therapist’s body to manually manipulate the client's soft body tissues (muscle, connective tissue, tendons, and ligaments) to enhance health and well-being.

The key here is to enhance health and well-being. Western Medicines have had a history of ignoring, or beguiling Eastern practices and medicine. Over the past years, though, many more Doctors are recognizing the benefits of massage and no longer look at it as just a luxury. Having been raised in Japan, massage was never looked upon as a luxury, but as a form of therapy to help our bodies heal, our minds rest, our spirits raised and our souls refreshed. Massage is a lot more costly there than here in the States, but Nihon-chin (Japanese) gladly pay their fee because of the many great benefits massages produce.

Often Massage is used for specific reasons, such as relief from pain, stress reduction, or enhancement of athletic performance. Massage therapy tends to increase the general health and well-being of the recipient, whether there is a specific goal or not. And who would not want to take some time out of their day to relax and allow another person, who truly is passionate in giving this healing touch to someone, to help them become more in tune with the world around them, in a peaceful sort of way.

But I say this: It is important that you find someone who is truly passionate about massage and can ‘sense’ the areas needing work. If you are going in for a ‘rubdown’, in my opinion, you are wasting your money and will not find much healing. There are many ‘massage mills’ who hire almost any massage therapist they can find. There is a lot of turnover at these mills as well because the therapist often is paid very little for their work and the environment becomes more of a ‘corporate’ workplace, rather than a place for healing and relaxation.

Massage should be a priority in a person’s life, though not everyone can afford it. The next section will discuss some of the ‘benefits’ that massage produces, and there are many.