A massage prescription

A massage is beautiful and healing present to give yourself. There is plenty of evidence that simply being touched by another person is healing but what better could there be than being touched by a person trained in nurturing your body, using healing oils, in a calming environment? Add to this the inestimable value of just stopping the tumult and busy-ness of your life for a while and a massage is an obviously healthy gift. The question is though, how much massage do you need to reap health benefits? Is a quick knead of the shoulders enough to heal or does dosage matter? That is what researchers sought to find out.

For the new study researchers had hundreds of people with chronic neck pain divided into five different groups. Each group received a different “dose” of massage therapy over the course of five weeks.

The results showed that people who received 30 minutes of massage two or three times a week experienced no significant improvement compared to a control group who received no massage. However, people who received 60 minutes of massage two to three times a week showed significant improvements in neck function and significant reductions in pain. Additionally, compared to the control group people who had 60 minute massages twice a week were three times more likely to have clinical improvements in neck pain. If they had 60 minutes of massage three times per week they were five times as likely to have reductions in neck pain.

So it does seem that the dose of massage you receive makes a difference…which, incidentally, also indicates that massage is having a real effect. The really good news is that 60 minutes of massage two to three times a week is a prescription that is easy to take.