The scientific evidence base for Sports & Deep Tissue Massage 22 Apr 2020
I would like to write a series of blog articles on the scientific evidence for massage. I think it is important to start by stating the obvious that while massage can be studied, not many scientists are interested in studying it and not many massage therapists have scientific training. This means that massage is woefully under researched. In addition it is amazingly difficult to find 100 people with the same problem, who need exactly the same massage treatment, so large scale studies are very rare, which means a weakness of most studies is their size. Finally, while, most scientists are interested in how massage works, we don't have to know how something works to know if it works. I know most of my clients are interested in scientific evidence but equally important is anecdotal evidence, their own opinion and experience of the treatment. What it crystal clear from scientific data and widely agreed upon by massage therapist researchers is that massage- Reduces anxiety
- Reduces depression
- Reduces stress
- Reduces high BP