5Ws+1H: What It's About: Massage therapy offers many benefits - Tahlequah Daily Press

[massage]

With all the responsibilities of everyday life, it's easy to get stressed, but a little massage can help reduce that tension and benefit the body in a number of ways.

Massage therapy can benefit the circulatory, digestive, muscular, nervous, respiratory, lymph, integumentary, and skeleton systems. Muscle tension can be reduced, joint mobility and flexibility can be improved, and headaches and migraines can disappear, but the list of immediate benefits is even longer.

Those who have never had a professional massage may be hesitant to have a stranger touch them. Donnita Armstrong, owner of Donnita's Therapeutic Massage, said it's perfectly natural for clients to be nervous or uneasy at first. But by the end of a good massage, she said, they'll already be setting up their next appointment.

"I adapt my pressure to the person," Armstrong said. "If someone can't take real deep pressure, then I back off. My massages are adaptive to what the person tells me, what the person can tolerate, and what I find. My hands kind of guide me on how to do their massage. Most of the time, we find problems people didn't realize they had."

Massage therapists typically tell clients to undress to their comfort levels. Clients can undress completely and they'll be draped for privacy purposes, or leave all of their clothes on if they choose. Some people may feel self-conscious about their bodies, or could have a disability that prevents them from lying flat on the table, but that shouldn't stop them from getting the help they need. Therapists are non-judgmental and can adapt the massage to any disability, said Armstrong.

"We're not there to get a date with the person on our table," she said. "It doesn't matter if you've shaved your legs. Cleanliness is nice, but that's about it. All sizes of bodies need massaged and it affects all systems."

People shouldn't feel like they have to make conversation when getting a massage. A therapist will typically ask questions so they know where to apply more or less pressure, but whether there is discussion throughout is up to the client.

"Most people are there for stress relieving, so I try not to talk, but I try to gain a rapport with them so they know me," Armstrong said. "There are a lot of people who are very uncomfortable in the beginning, but midway through, they're wishing they had an hour or they're making their next appointment, because you break down that barrier."

It's common for people to fall asleep while getting a massage. Armstrong said that's just a sign the massage is working and the client has reached relaxation, so she typically continues massaging and will then gently wake up the person at the end.

"A massage gives them an hour from the sympathetic state in the nervous system to a parasympathetic state," she said. "It's kind of a meditative state, when the pulse rate slows down, the blood pressure slows down - it's your healing state. For people who have illnesses and surgeries, if they can get that part of the nervous system settled down, they heal faster and better."