How does massage help you feel better and reduce painful conditions?
Imagine you stub your toe. We’ve all been taught that nerve signals travel from the injured area (your toe) to your brain where the message is received and processed. This theory seems to make sense, but it doesn’t account for many situations - such as when an athlete or performer injures a muscle but doesn’t feel the pain until much later. The injury occurred, but the pain message is delayed. And what about fibromyalgia sufferers who experience severe pain with no apparent cause for it?
Scientists have discovered a structure in the spinal cord (called a dorsal horn) that acts as a gateway for the messages en route to the brain. Sometimes this “gate” opens, allowing the messages to pass through, sometimes it doesn’t.
The speed of the message being sent is one important factor that comes into play with this system. Dull pain (a tension headache for instance) travels relatively slowly, from about half a mile to two miles per second. A sharper pain (a torn muscle) travels between five and thirty miles per second. Surprisingly, non-painful touch sensations, including pressure and massage, travel much faster at 35 to 75 miles per second! So if you have two types of sensations entering this dorsal horn area simultaneously, the faster of the two will be sent on, blocking the transmission of the slower one. This offers an explanation of why you would instinctively apply pressure to your stubbed toe; this sensation will get to the gate faster than the pain sensation.
While your body is sending pain signals toward your brain, your nervous system is transmitting chemical messages in response, which can affect the gating mechanism. One of the best known types of these natural pain blocking chemicals is the endorphin (which functions almost identically to morphine). Studies have shown that massage boosts the production of endorphins, further explaining how it helps to lessen pain.
Pain messages are sent from nerve cell to nerve cell, actually having to jump across a gap from one nerve cell to the next. This transmission is assisted by chemicals called neurotransmitters. Two of these neurotransmitters that you may recognize by name are dopamine and serotonin, both of which seem to serve as pain reducers. Other neurotransmitters are thought to promote pain. “When these neurotransmitters are thrown off balance and the body produces too little or too much of them, they can prevent normal, short-term pain from fading away,” says James N. Dillard M.D., one of the leading pain specialists in America in an article in Body & Soul magazine. He also states (along with many others) that massage is an effective tool for managing pain and that “massage therapy can ease muscular pain…” Again, massage can help your body balance neurotransmitter levels.
Yet another factor: upon receiving a pain signal, an area of your brain triggers the release of hormones that can bring about an increase in blood pressure and heart beat rate, as well as tensing your muscles and diverting blood away from your digestive system. Sometimes these hormonal responses continue, contributing to chronic pain conditions. Again, massage has been shown to be an effective means of helping your body return to a pain-free state.
It’s good to know there is solid scientific research to back up what many of us already know: the natural healing power of massage!
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