What’s a massage

• The sense of touch is a form of intense communication and play should be a natural relationship between people. The act of touching is instinctive to human beings. When you get hurt, massaging the spot instinctively, trying to relieve pain.

• Physiologically, massage the painful area improves the circulation and consequent oxygenation than warm the affected area. All these effects result in pain relief. There are several types of massage, with many different purposes: relaxation, stimulation, postural correction and improvement of sexuality are among them.

• But most of the massage is premised on promoting the health of the massaged and can be applied in several areas of medicine: problems, cancer, respiratory, digestive and rheumatology few. In such cases, massage should be applied by professionals in physical therapy or who have made some progress in specific techniques such as Ayurvedic, shiatsu, tuina, reflexology and rolfing.

• Physical therapy uses massage as a diagnostic tool and therapeutic. This professional knows that the touch be it profound or subtle, provides local and general effects on the human body. Both physical and psychological effects, says the physiotherapist Simone Lima.

• But the privilege of receiving a massage need not necessarily be enjoyed in a clinic or in the hands of a professional. If, after a full day at work, you are hungry for a good massage to relieve tension, you can be massaged by the hands of a layman.

• How touching is a natural instinct to massage to relieve tension can be applied by anyone, provided that carefully. In cases of relaxing massages, one should stimulate the muscles of the shoulder (trapezius) to release the toxins and , consequently, relieve tension.

HISTORY OF MASSAGE

• The history of massage is as old as man. Archaeological studies indicate that even in prehistoric times, man promoted the general welfare and acquired protection against injury and infection through friction in the body. Would be the beginnings of what today is meant for massage.

• There are also records that the ancient civilizations such as Egyptians, Hindus, Greeks, Romans, Chinese and Japanese, about 300 BC, made references on the benefits of massage for the well-being. But the first to recognize the healing properties of this technique of rubbing the body were the Chinese, who signed the earliest literature that has news: the medical text Nei Ching, written in 2800 BC The word massage comes from Greek and means kneading.

• After the Chinese, the father of medicine, the Greek Hippocrates, made use of the therapeutic properties of massage, which he called anatripisis, meaning to rub pressing tissues. The phrase was translated into Latin as frictio and remained in use in the United States until 1870. Frictio means rubbing or scrubbing.

• In India, the term used to describe massage was shampooing. In China, it was Cong Fou, and in Japan, ambouk.

• Check our website about physical therapy and massage:

• Masajista a domicilio• Fisioterapeuta a domicilio