What can help my lower back pain?
However, just because lower back pain is common doesn’t mean it should be tolerated on a daily basis. Massage for lower back pain can provide significant relief for tired, painful, compressed muscles. With targeted massage therapy, lower back pain may be controlled and eased for long-term recovery.
- Dull, aching pain: This can also be accompanied by muscle spasms in the lower back area including the base of the spine, the pelvis, and hips.
- Pain after sitting: Sitting for prolonged periods puts pressure on the disks, causing symptoms to worsen when seated.
- Pain that is worse upon waking up: Many people report lower back pain that is worse when waking up, but often find it subsides after moving around or when changing positions.
If you have lower back pain you may want to try the following:
- stay active and try to continue with your daily activities
- use an ice pack (or bag of frozen peas) wrapped in a tea towel to reduce pain and swelling
- use a heat pack (or hot water bottle) wrapped in a tea towel to relieve joint stiffness or muscle spasms
- resist the temptation to spend prolonged periods in bed
Massage therapy can alleviate lower back pain by reducing muscle tension and inducing a state of relaxation. If you are suffering from lower back why not book a massage now.
Related Posts
The scientific evidence base for Sports & Deep Tissue Massage
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
Do you know the benefits of drinking tea?
I have to admit that I don't drink tea. I like my herbal teas but lets face it, they don't actually contain any tea. In a morning I like my decaf americano. But having done the research on tea, I may need to change my habits. Prof Feng and his team in collaboration with Essex University and Cambridge have been researching the impact of long term tea drinking habits. They concluded that individuals that drank either green tea,oolong tea or black tea at least four times a week for about 25 years had better brain health than people who don't drink tea. So what are the other benefits of tea?
- Daily consumption of tea reduced the risk of cognitive decline by 50% in older people.
- Improves mood.
- Protects agains cardiovascular disease.
Anxiety reduction & massage?
I know that I often say that one of the benefits of massage is that it may reduce anxiety. I think most people would agree that being in hospital or undergoing hospital procedures may makes us feel anxious. So I was interested in a recent study that looked at the effectiveness of massage with or without guided imagery (a therapist talking you through a scene to help you relax), prior to cardiac catheterisation. As you can imagine anxiety is very common in patients prior to cardiac catheterisation, which can lead to high blood pressure and increase the amount of sedation necessary to complete the procedure. Fifty five patients opted to receive either a 15-minute massage (31 patients) and a 20 minute guided imagery (24 patients) in a quiet area of the hospital prior to cardiac catheterisation. Self-report anxiety levels, blood pressure and heart rate were evaluated in the research participants as well as matched for comparison to a control group not taking part in the study. The results indicated that massage, with or without guided imagery, produced significant reductions in self-reported anxiety, with the combined intervention having a more pronounced effect. In addition a lower diastolic blood pressure and heart rate were found when compared to the control group. In my experience slow, deep stokes help to reduce anxiety and as a team we often incorporate this into treatments. References Amstrong K, Dixon S, May S, Patricolo GE (2014). Anxiety reduction in patients undergoing cardiac catheterisation, following massage and guided imagery. Complementary Therapies in Clinical Practice 20 (4): 334 - 338.
