It’s an undeniable fact; Humans love to be touched, bear hugged, rubbed on the back and being massaged.
Touch is one of the most important things you can give to your body. A powerful way of communication. Touch doesn’t lie and when you touch someone you feel that person and are touched at the same time.
The feeling of skin on skin combined with varying pressures, textures, and stimuli can awaken our senses, help lower blood pressure and heart rate, give us relief from pain, boost our immune system and lower stress hormones. And as we all know, it also helps us to feel less stressed and anxious. No wonder! Since the skin is our largest organ. One square inch of skin has over 1,000 nerve endings, all of which are responsive to touch. With so many of those sensitive receptors, it is no surprise that humans crave skin to skin contact. This is why hugs feel good, and massages even more so!
Baby massage and cuddles
Children instinctively like to touch and be touched. They do not hide their need for physical contact either. In the first three years of a child’s life, close physical contact with the mother is imperative for a child’s growth and development. From day one, infants rely on the safety of their mother. Connecting through touch, cradling, breastfeeding or in some countries carrying the child on their body.
Babies who haven’t experienced enough cuddles, touch and general affection can often be susceptible to illnesses. Without these gestures of affection, an infant can sense a lack of nurturing, leaving them vulnerable and can get very stressed which can have an adverse effect on their growth and development.
Touch is a wonderful way to bond and gives time to play with your child. Massaging your little one not only aids in relaxation and helping them sleep better, but also helps tone muscles, speeds brain and nervous system development, strengthens the immune system and can relieve discomforts associated with teething, chest and sinus congestion, colic and reflux.
A connection and form of expression that will last a lifetime!
Adults crave touch too
Unlike children’s adults learn about boundaries and personal space. Sometimes, they go many days without direct skin on skin contact, especially our senior generation. They say hi to friends without so much as a hug or even a handshake. For all you with a young family, days are filled with activities and being too busy makes it easier to neglect the basic need of touch.
However, the need for skin on skin contact is very important to our health and wellbeing. Being touched on the outside, through the skin, in many ways we are touched on the inside, experiencing a sense of comfort, support and body awareness. Anyone who has ever had the pleasure of experiencing a professional massage will tell you that there’s nothing like it. Its soothing effect help you unwind after a period of work or tension and being massaged gives your body the breathing space to start recharging your batteries so that you’ll feel much better afterward.
However, stress and tension are much more than just a feeling. Massage helps to return your muscles to a non-contracted pain-free state, initiating chemical reactions and releasing hormones and assist to rebalance other physical functions like digestion, immune and respiratory system.
Hurray for science!
The experience of touch is different for everyone. Pressure, vibration, temperature and muscle motion that move the skin enliven us with sensation. But did you know, we must be touched to survive? It is the essences of our survival and not simply a matter of wellbeing.
Scientific proof reveals that regular massages help keeps you happy and healthy. In response to therapeutic touch the body alters the activity of the central and peripheral nervous system, makes changes in the concentration of hormones and regulates body rhythms that control much of the body’s normal functions, including performance, behaviour, sleep and endocrine rhythms.
In a research featuring a group of healthy adults, those who received a 45-minute relaxing massage have significantly lower blood pressure and cortisol levels immediately following the massage session.
The Touch Research Institute at the University of Miami’s Miller school of medicine is known for their research on the subject of touch and gives a better insight of the understanding of the importance of touch by studying many different groups of people. Their research shows that touching in a structured way is very important, if not an absolute need of all living beings. From infants to elderly and from highly stressed people to very ill people.
So the evidence is mounting up that massage is more than just a nice rub, but the way to self-care and keep you in optimal health. Why not book your appointment today at MarisSage Remedial Therapies in Epping?
