Massage Therapy in Maple Grove. Do you have lingering neck or back pain that won't go away? Did you suffer soft tissue damage in a recent injury? Or are you just under a lot of stress that's weighing you down and not allowing you to feel your best? Many people in Maple Grove are finding massage therapy to be an effective treatment option for whatever ails them. Total Spine Health & Injury Center is dedicated to helping those in Maple Grove feel their best and return to an active, pain-free lifestyle that many thought was in the rearview. If feeling good every day has escaped you for far too long, call Total Spine today at (763) 568-7869 or schedule an appointment online.
Massage therapy is becoming increasingly popular in Maple Grove and throughout the United States. In 2021, 25% of men and 21% of women received a massage. Through a variety of techniques massage increases blood flow to a region, bringing much-needed nutrients to a neglected area, and loosens up muscles that have become stuck together, allowing them to move more freely. It also releases "feel-good" endorphins, which leaves us relaxed and stress-free. While many people seek out an appointment simply because a massage helps them feel better, they've also been proven to help relieve pain and treat and prevent injuries.
A Brief History of Massage Therapy
Massage therapy has been around for at least 5,000 years. It was developed by several different ancient civilizations and took a long path to becoming the popular and effective treatment option it's now known to be.
Massage in Ancient Times
In India, it was practiced as part of Ayurveda, a holistic healing system, in approximately 3000 BCE, if not earlier. Chinese texts documenting the benefits of massage therapy appeared around 2700 BCE. In Egypt, tomb paintings from a similar period depict people kneading others, and the Egyptians developed reflexology around 2500 BCE. Beginning around 1000 BCE, Japanese monks who had studied Buddhism in China brought message therapy back to Japan, which grew into amna, or traditional Japanese massage. These ancient practitioners all believed that massage was essential to restoring and maintaining balance, whether spiritual, physical, or with their surrounding environment.
Massage Makes Its Way to Europe
Around 800 BCE, massage therapy found its way to Greece, where Greek athletes used it to recover and stay at peak performance. Centuries later, Hippocrates began incorporating it into his healthy living combination of proper diet, exercise, and fresh air. He prescribed "friction" or "rubbing", and created the rational and scientific basis for massage therapy in Western medicine by touting its ability to loosen up stiff muscles. Roman physician and Hippocrates believer Galen began using massage therapy between 100 and 200 BCE, and the treatment became popular in public baths.
Decline and Introduction in the United States
While massage therapy would decline in popularity in the West for many centuries, it started to pick up steam in Europe again in the 17th century. It was introduced in the United States to treat World War I soldiers for nerve injuries and shell shock, and, eventually massage boomed in the second half of the 20th century.
Now massage therapy is used around the globe to treat a variety of injuries, illnesses, and symptoms from Kathmandu, to Timbuktu, to Maple Grove. While practitioners of massage may have different ideological backgrounds, patients all over the world have found it to bring them balance, healing, and restoration.
Benefits of Massage Therapy in Maple Grove
Whether you're receiving one massage, a series of them to help treat an injury, or choose to get massages often, massage therapy has countless benefits that accompany you not only for the rest of the day, but for the weeks to come:
You'll only see higher increases in these benefits as you incorporate massage therapy into a consistent part of your wellness routine.
Is Maple Grove Massage Therapy Right For Me?
Massage therapy can be beneficial to anyone in the Maple Grove area and beyond. There are no downsides; when done by licensed professionals, massage therapy can help anyone relieve stress, improve mobility, improve posture, and generally feel better in their everyday life. Many athletes choose to have frequent massage appointments to help them stay at the top of their game. There are also many specific conditions that studies show massage therapy may be capable of alleviating or curing:
Acute Injuries
Massage therapy can greatly aid the recovery of a variety of soft tissue injuries, including sports injuries and car accident injuries. Any sudden injury causes a variety of complications and symptoms, including pain, swelling, limited range of motion, and scar tissue building up over your soft tissue. Maple Grove massage therapy can reduce the negative symptoms of your injuries and stimulate the body's natural healing process by smoothing over tissue and stimulating blood flow.
Lingering Pain
Acute injuries are not the source of all of our pain. Often, pain and discomfort are the result of poor posture during everyday tasks, a small, nagging injury that gets worse over time as it remains untreated, or just the wear and tear our bodies fall under as we work, bring in the groceries, or play with our kids. Massage therapy in Maple Grove can correct these imbalances and bring your body back to a place where it can feel good every day.
Massage therapy in Maple Grove can help alleviate these symptoms by reducing muscle tension and headaches, stabilizing your blood pressure, and releasing feel-good endorphins and hormones such as neurotensin, oxytocin, and cortisol, which relieve stress-related pain and encourage social bonding.
Massage therapy, in combination with healthy life choices such as exercise and a proper diet and other treatments, can help you rediscover your optimal mental and physical health at the same time.
Prenatal Massage
An expecting mother's body goes under an incredible amount of changes as her body goes through hormone shifts and makes room for the growing baby. Massage therapy can help alleviate many of the physical discomforts women experience while pregnant. It will increase blood flow to areas that have recently had it restricted, reduce joint and back pain, improve sleep patterns, and release much-needed feel-good hormones. Some studies have even suggested that prenatal massage can reduce labor time and labor pain.
While massage is generally safe for pregnant women, it's always important to speak with a doctor before undergoing any type of treatment to ensure it's safe for you.
Other conditions massage therapy can help treat in Maple Grove include:
Chiropractic Care and Massage Therapy in Maple Grove
While massage therapy offers great benefits for Maple Grove residents looking to recover and feel better, we believe it's most effective when combined with chiropractic care. Chiropractic and massage offer much of the same benefits, but treat very different parts of the human musculoskeletal system.
Chiropractic care treats issues from a structural standpoint. Through chiropractic adjustments, chiropractors manipulate the joints and spine in order to improve how your body functions. By extending the spine and performing quick, targeted thrusts on the joints, we help your bones move better and take stress off your nervous system.
Massage therapy treats the soft tissue component. Soft tissue is comprised of ligaments that connect bones and cartilage together, muscles that power the movement of our bones, and tendons that connect muscles to bones. In essence, our soft tissue is kind of a "pulley system" that holds things in place and allows us to move. Through micro-traumas, meaning poor posture or repetitive everyday tasks, or acute injuries, we develop scar tissue that makes soft tissue weaker and less flexible, compromising our body's support structure. Massage helps fibers lay down in the correct configuration for optimal health, mobility, and strength, which then supports the bony structures underneath.
Combining massage therapy and chiropractic care prolongs the effects of both and ensure both treatments work as well as they can. Chiropractic adjustments make it easier for tight muscles to relax during and after a massage, and massage therapy relaxes the nervous system, enhancing the effects of chiropractic treatment.
Both massage therapy and chiropractic care are safe when performed by licensed, trained professionals. Many have found them to be a better alternative to costly prescription medications for pain relief and swelling reduction. At Total Spine Health & Injury Center, we are licensed and experienced in both types of treatment, making us the ideal location for your injury recovery, pain relief, or general wellness needs.
Call Total Spine Health & Injury Center for Massage Therapy in Maple Grove Today
At Total Spine, we're not just looking to make one muscle group feel better or help out with the migraine you're experiencing today; we want to partner with you so that you can feel the best you possibly can. We offer personalized care and one-on-one attention, aimed at creating an effective treatment plan to help ease whatever ailment you're seeking massage therapy for in Maple Grove. Our licensed massage therapist is trained and skilled in deep tissue, Swedish, myofascial, and trigger point massage, as well as cupping. For effective and long-lasting massage therapy in Maple Grove, call us today at (763) 568-7869 or contact us online.
Other conditions massage therapy can help treat in Maple Grove include: