Your mission, should you choose to accept.

As a scientific-minded person, I am usually pondering the deep, unanswered questions about how we move, why certain a disease occurs, and how culture affects a population’s health.  And about a month ago, I came up with a REALLY good idea for a scientific experiment. 

What happens to one’s body if they are to get a massage EVERY DAY for a week?

I know, I know.  I am dedicated to my work, it’s true.

While many people have had a massage at some point, I am always surprised at those who have not.  Massage is an extremely old practice, with Egyptian hieroglyphics depicting this ancient therapy.  The Yellow Emperor’s Classic of Internal Medicine (2,700 B.C.) recommends the massage of skin and flesh as a treatment for various ailments, and Hippocrates in the 5th century B.C. “The Physician Must Be Experienced In Many Things,” wrote “but assuredly in rubbing…for rubbing can bind a joint that is too loose, and loosen a joint that is too rigid.”

In 1874 a medical doctor, Andrew Taylor Still began a practice that we now call Osteopathy.  This practice had strong roots in physical manipulation for the purpose of reducing any anatomical deviations.  The common practice still operates today under the premise that malalignment of tissues creates disease.

A quick lesson on circulation…

A healthy body is constantly circulating.  And while we know the cardiovascular system has the heart as a pump, it is really the action of muscle tissue that helps the blood evenly distribute throughout the body.  If you have muscles in your body that don’t contract (and most of us are using a small percentage of the total muscles available) then those areas don’t have fresh, circulating blood.  These unused areas tend to have an accumulation of waste product, and can be pressure-sensitive.

The process of massage is a “faking it” of sorts.  By pressing on a muscle, or pulling on the skin or fascia (complex tissue underneath the skin and throughout the body), a massage therapist gets the muscle to compress the vessels located inside the area.  When compressed, the smallest blood vessels respond by opening up, allowing blood to come in and waste to leave.  Your massage therapist is basically doing the work for your muscles – which is why body work is best done in conjunction with improving your muscle-using habits – either using them more, or using them more correctly.

So, going back to massage history, how did this original health care system fall into the category of “luxury”?  And don’t get me wrong.  I love the heated massage table, padded face cradle, aromatherapy candles, and the Zen soundtrack.  But again I’ll ask, when did this simple, healing treatment get placed under the same category as a spa manicure?

With all of this in mind, I started out to see what a daily dose of ancient medicine felt like.

Day One: My health issues tend to happen between the ears.  Headaches, jaw tension, and constant throat fatigue are my ailments of choice.  After discussing these with Cindy R., she began what I can only describe as the best head and neck massage I have ever felt.  The muscles in our heads don’t do much – even though there are many movements they are designed to do.  We tend to use the same facial expressions and speak the same language (learning French is KILLER on the muscles around the chin!) so there tends to be a lot of tension here.  Using a myo-fascial release technique developed by John Barnes, Cindy R did an hour + of mostly head, neck, and shoulder work.  She found an extremely tense place in my mid-back and we discovered I had an old, ingrained habit of lifting my own shoulders…all the time!  At the end of the session, Cindy told me not to try to “fix” the problem with exercise, or even really think about it, but just to allow the time to feel myself in relation to my shoulders.  Got it.

About 90 minutes later, while hanging from the monkey bars to fix and stretch my tight shoulders, I got a clue.  Oooohhhhh, this is what she was talking about.  So I dropped off the bars and walked home right then.  I’m thick headed, it is true.  Maybe that’s why I’m always tight there.  But less that day, for sure.

Day Two:  I met Michael K., in his office for a Swedish massage that really demonstrated his expertise in anatomical science.  When I got on the table I noticed the head cradle was fairly low.  How clever, I thought.  His table allows your head to hang forward to relax your neck during the massage.  About 15 minutes into the session, he said “Wow, that head cradle is really low.”  I asked him if he arranged it that way.  “No” he said, “I borrowed the table from [a friend]” he said.  And then this was the best part…

“It’s really old” he paused…”from the 70’s.”

I too, am from the Seventies.

It probably goes without saying that Michael K. is not.

Anyhow, the second part of the massage consisted of excellent work on the sternal area.  The sternum (where your necklace usually hits) is a part that doesn’t get worked very often, especially deep and in between the ribs that attach there.  By the end of my session, and for the entire next day, I could feel this area expanding with every breath…just like it is supposed to.  Evidently my tight neck and shoulders were keeping my ribs from moving to their full distance!  But not for the rest of the week, I noticed.

Day Three: Ronelle W. is also trained in John Barnes’ myofascial technique.  I was feeling a bit “monthly”, if you know what I mean, and I was having a bit of abdominal and pelvic cramping at the time.  I let her know what was up, and she started by working on my abdomen.  Now I know that many massage therapists don’t touch the belly much – especially if it is your first session or two – but I have to tell you, most of us have so much tension in the psoas (the deep abdominal and hip flexor located here) that abdominal work is a necessary thing!  Ask your LMT (Licensed Massage Therapist) if they are trained to and will work in this area – it makes a wonderful treatment.

After an hour, Ronelle had released my psoas, the fronts of my thighs, and my external pelvic muscles.  I walked into her office feeling like I might need a Tylenol within the next hour, and I left feeling great.  It turns out I didn’t need to put anything into my body to feel better.   I only needed something taken out…tightness!  Thank you, Ronelle!

Day Four:  Something strange is happening today.  Relaxation is making me whine a lot.

I was actually too tired to get a massage this day.  It was too much trouble to get to my appointment, and I needed to get my work done, and why did I have to stop working to go all the way to Tim’s office (which, did I mention is upstairs inside my office building?) to get my body worked on?

This says a lot about me, and it may say something about you too.  I am so used to working frantically and constantly, the notion of health (enter the word exercise, yoga class, cooking a good meal, getting a massage) seems too overwhelming.  One more thing to do.  But just like all of the things listed above, once you do it, you feel much better than ever expected!

So I whined and whinged up the stairs (all 12 of them) to an hour+ of some of the deepest leg, calve, and foot massage I have ever had.  And because it was massage number four, very little of it hurt.  I could tell he was working, and working deep.  Tim is an anatomy teacher, so he was tracing in between every muscle.  This normally would have caused me to yelp, but because my external muscle armor was relaxed from the previous three sessions, I had very little resistance.

At the end of the session, not only was my superficial tension gone, the deeper tension (which I hadn’t even been aware of the week before) was beginning to fade.  Not whining any more, am I.

Day Five: I went to visit Anna.  Oh Anna, What are you going to do to me today? I thought.  But Anna is a pro, and knew that after four hours of massage, it would be time for an easy-going, all over session that supported and helped integrate any muscle fiber changes.  In the middle of this excellent session, on this, the final day of my massage experiment, I felt like she wasn’t even touching my body.  If you’ve ever had a massage (or even a shoulder rub) you know which areas of your body will be sore.  But all of my “spots” were GONE!  As she worked my entire body, everywhere I expected to hurt, did not.  And near the end of the session, she had really honed in on some *new* spots – areas of old OLD injury that had gone unnoticed for I-don’t-know how long.  But now I am aware, so let the healing begin!

A couple of comments:

1.  By the end of the week I observed that I was extremely relaxed in my mind and in my attitude.  Things that would have normally brought on a headache or jaw and neck tension, didn’t even phase me.  And my breathing pattern was very deep and slow.

2.  About the cost.  I have taken spa-weekends and paid 3-4 times more for much less than what I received during my week of massage.  An massage can range $65-90/hour, and I felt extremely positive keeping the energy of my money in my local community.   I also appreciate the hours of training and overhead these business people are obligated to.  A week-long commitment to my muscle/neurological health and physical self-analysis was well worth every penny!

Flashing forward to today (a week later), I’m still feeling super-aware and super-toned.   I use my muscles A LOT, but there were some puppies in there that hadn’t been doing a thing.  With the five hours of “faking it” via massage, my muscles are much more toned and defined (thanks guys!) and my sternum is still moving when I inhale.  Ahhhhhhhh.  I’ve decided to do my Week-of-Massages once a quarter, to continue to address my own level of health.  I think of it as my contribution to our national health care costs.

Next week, take a look at how my second brain-child goes…A Week of Milkshakes.

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