At Deep River Bodyworks we bring mindfulness to the practice of deep tissue massage. We’re listening to you and what your body is telling us and moderating our techniques and pressure to best match your needs and optimize results.
Deep Tissue Massage is famous for helping to relieve the accumulated aches and pains associated with chronic stress, muscular overload, and injury, but what is it? Deep Tissue is really a generalized term for a vast collection of techniques that share some common attributes: They tend to be slow and focused, with pressure that has an impact through multiple layers or muscular tissue. Most therapists that practice “Deep Tissue” are drawing off of many skill sets-each of us has our own “tool kit” for achieving muscular release.
The benefits of Deep Tissue Massage are numerous, but first and foremost is the potential of deep tissue to return muscles to a normal resting length, improving circulation in previously constricted areas in the body and helping to move out the waste products of cellular respiration. It has been shown that tissue that is ischemic, that is lacking in blood supply, produces pain. The pain often causes the musculature in the vicinity to spasm in a protective response, which contributes further to ischemia. What we have here is self-feeding loop. Deep tissue massage interrupts this cycle giving your body the chance to return to normal functioning.
Another important contributing factor to the experiencing of pain is stress hormones. The brain is always receiving no-ciception, pain signaling, from the body. It’s the body’s way of making the brain aware of possible threats. Most of this no-ciception is disregarded as the brain pairs it with all of the other available information it has to rule out the existence of threats. However, under continued duress, the body accumulates stress hormones. These hormones, such as cortisol, have the net effect of increasing the threshold at which no-ciception is given a higher priority in the brains’ ordering of threat assessment. We begin feeling aches and pains we didn’t have before.
A 2010 meta-analysis in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry found that massage modalities like deep tissue reduce stress hormone levels and heart rate while boosting mood and relaxation by triggering the release of oxytocin and serotonin. The result is a lowering of the brain’s defense mechanisms and a greater receptivity to the experiencing of pleasure.
Something that often gets left out of the conversation about deep tissue massage is the dynamics of receiving it. Although it is often viewed as a purely passive process, most experienced therapists will tell you that the client’s willingness and ability to focus attention on the experience contributes as much to the therapeutic process as the touch itself. The catch-22 that we have in seeking good health in our modern world is that for many of us our occupations and entertainment distance us from healthy movement and bodily experience. Sitting for long periods of time weakens the skeletal musculature while reducing circulation in compressed structures, staring at screens draws our attention out of ourselves. Emotional distress or trauma can cause us to dis-associate further. Deep Tissue massage is a tool by which we can rapidly re-connect through the feedback of touch. The attention and curiosity we give to the sensations we are experiencing on the table facilitates the release of constriction.
Often deep tissue massage doesn’t feel “good” in the classic sense; particularly in the areas where we are most constricted touch can be quite painful. This experience can be further augmented by anxieties associated with that area. Injuries and chronic pain producing areas often cause us anxieties-will I need surgery? How will I pay for that?? Will I lose function? All of these sorts of anxieties tend to feed into the problem further. Sometimes pain issues are entirely generated by emotional distress and touch in these areas tends to be resolved by the experiencing of emotion we are unwilling to express in the world.
Because our challenges are so varied, our receptivity to the work varies. For some the receiving comes naturally, so much so that it seems a totally passive process, while for others the sensations can feel overwhelming and the urge to resist pressure or dis-associate from the experience is strong.
Quieting the mind at any time is a challenge for many and a stronger approach is needed to capture their attention. The point is that everyone needs something different, but anyone will receive greater benefit via curious attention to experience in whatever form it comes. At Deep River Bodyworks we bring mindfulness to the practice of deep tissue. We’re listening to you and what your body is telling us and moderating our techniques and pressure to best match your needs and optimize results.
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