Massage - health and longevity benefits?

#1

A few years ago I started getting massages, primarily because my employer benefits cover about one per month. Subjectively, the feeling of getting a massage is quite nice, but do you think there is any value to including massage as part of one’s routine and overall health/longevity protocol?

Perhaps one of the challenges here is how often a person can realistically get a massage. I’m guessing that for most people, it probably falls within the category of about once per month.

If someone has something specific for the massage therapist to address (i.e. injury recovery, post triathlon, etc) I can imagine it being of particular value. But for someone who is generally “healthy/well,” I also wonder if it makes much of a difference.

Perhaps it reduces cortisol, increases parasympathetic activity, increases oxytocin, and so forth.

Regardless of whether there is a true benefit or not, I’ll probably continue to get them since they are essentially free of charge. Though if I had to pay out of pocket, I think the money would probably be better spent elsewhere.

The host of the “Longevity World Cup,” Adam Ficsor, is pretty big on massage.

What does everyone think about massage?

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#2

Never had it done by a professional (except therapeutically after an injury). But it’s possible there may also be some benefits for the lymphatic system, mimicking some aspects of exercise, but you’d have to have it done regularly to maintain the effects, and ultimately I’m not sure the effect size would be large enough to meaningfully impact health. But I can’t say I’ve come across robust studies showing measurable effects of massage on generally healthy people. I suppose it can’t hurt - unlike chiropractic manipulation (which I personally would never subject myself to - scary as hell, though obviously many swear by them).

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#3

Good points here - I would also never go near a chiropractor… but that’s just me. I’m a little surprised there isn’t more data on massage. When I do some searching it appears there hasn’t been a ton of research here. But then again, I guess who is going to fund it?

#4

This is not directly about general massage in healthy people, but it is a thorough indictment of the efectiveness - or rather lack of - of not just chiropractic manipulation, but physical therapy and exercise - examined in the context of shoulder pain.

I must say, this has been my experience with physical therapy to date - useless in most conditions including my recent knee pain multiple PT exercise sessions, although I think it’s indisputably true that I did get benefits of PT in getting back range of motion after my motorcycle accident related surgeries back in the 90’s. Whether the massage portion of the treatment did anything I can’t say. YMMV.

A 5 minute Dr. Greger video.

Chiropractic Manipulation, Physical Therapy, and Exercise Therapy for Shoulder Pain Relief (via NutritionFacts.org)

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#5

I’m with you re PT, at least having to go to the building and having that go on for many weeks - a racket imo unless there is some useful machine etc there that you don’t have at home. There are some great PT’s on YouTube also.

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#6

I have fibromyalgia and 20 years ago decided to spend the money for a massage 3 times a month for a year. It certainly felt good while getting it, but didn’t notice any subjective improvement. I think there’s benefit though and great that your work benefits includes them.

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#7

There’s something beneficial about stimulating a point in your body that’s craving to be stimulated.

Imagine you find a point in your shoulder that when you push on it a) you feel good pain - good pain as opposed to bad pain and b) the pain is referred way down on your hand. Congratulations! You’ve just found a trigger point - which science still don’t really know what it is. You push on it frequently enough this trigger point is gonna go away and your shoulder will feel better.

This is what I feel is undeniably therapeutical. Other than this there are very few to no compelling physiological reason to do massages. Something feels good is not a good enough reason. Scratching a mosquito bite feels good as well, yet that’s the last thing to do. Read more: PainScience.com: Does Massage Therapy Work?

The problem is that science is not very good at detecting these trigger points and measuring their resolution. This makes massage more like an art, than a science. Here’s my experience in getting the most out of this art:

You have to get good at receiving massages and then if you find a massage therapist that regularly goes to you, then you teach them trigger point therapy. The reason why a lot of work is up to you isn’t because most massage therapists suck, but because they cannot feel what you can feel. They don’t feel your “good pain” nor your “referred pain.” All they feel is the lumps in your body.
What you will notice is that most massage therapist push on your trigger points but move onto other places after a few seconds. The goal is to stop them and get them to explore your trigger point for much longer.

By the way this feedback asymmetry (you feel more than the massage therapist does) is good news for those who don’t have the money to get a massage therapist that’s open for you to teach them trigger point therapy, because self massage is more effective: get a foam roller and a number of different small balls and go for it. Spend most of your time trying to find a perfect spot and when you find it, enjoy it.

After many years of doing this I don’t really find perfect spots anymore. There are some good spots that no matter how much I massage just don’t go away though. Probably it’s a technique issue. That’s why it’s still an art.

Ultimately I think the breakthrough in massage science will come when we learn how to measure, probably with imaging, these trigger points and then we can see the fruits of our massages how your trigger point burden is going away.

In fact perhaps we find some other way to get these trigger points go away, maybe HBOT? One theory is that trigger points are oxygen-starved micro-cramps, and it tends to reason if we turn up the oxygen a notch with HBOT they may resolve.

Anyhow, I believe there’s huge knowledge blindness in massage science, because of a measurement problem and the future may hold some pleasant surprises in this field.

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#8

I’ve had bad knees forever (chondromalacia patella) and then a car accident in 2005 that left me with a bad whiplash that debilitated me for years, so I feel like I’ve been to ALL the providers!

I went to the go-to chiropractor in Austin (UT athletes and Lance Armstrong go to him), and he made me worse.

Until I met two unique PTs, I have had a lifetime of going to them and felt they were all useless, at least for me.

I finally met a guy in Austin who specialized in myofascial release and rolfing… and that is when I learned PT can mean very different things! Even George Bush called this guy ‘hands’. Only person I had met who could give me any relief… but alas, only temporarily.

Then I met my PT in CA who is also anything but typical… more akin to a witch doctor… he completely cured me. I’m still in disbelief at what he an do. Most people say the same.

I share this to encourage people to never give up and keep searching for the right person for you.

Another example is I had a lifelong cough that would be triggered by getting sick, so they simply thought I was prone to getting bronchitis. The only thing that could help was codeine. I went to ALL the doctors for this too.

It wasn’t until in my 40s that my husband was a PIA and made me keep going to different docs… I went from being given allergy shots for allergies I didn’t have, given inhalers for asthma I didn’t have, an MRI to look at the damaged lung I didn’t have…… until I went to yet another allergist who, within two minutes, said you have vocal chord dysfunction. He ended the apportionment abruptly and sent me to speech therapy… I had 3 visits any my cough was 95% better by doing some breathing exercises for my tight vocal chords… JFC! Was dealing with this since elementary school!

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#9

Undoubtedly, any symptom or ailment must be first correctly diagnosed before any attempt to cure/alleviate can be made. Sadly, that’s where current medical establishment frequently fails, and the patient often gives up. There are at any given time minor complaints, which - speaking only for myself here - I simply don’t bother to seek help with from healthcare providers, because from long and repeated experience I know odds are overwhelming that they’ll be unable to do anything about. I’ll get sent on a useless round of imaging and then maybe PT which almost always does nothing except waste time.

So then if you are persistent, you might keep fighting and sometimes miraculously get your issue actually resolved. But I frequently don’t have the time or patience and so I arbitrage - if the issue is minor, I just deal with it on my own, or if intolerable I have no choice but to keep doing the medical rounds until it’s resolved. That’s what happened to me with my cervical disc issue last year - it was intolerably painful and I had no choice. I was misdiagnosed twice with different diagnosis and did several sessions based on those misdiagnosis, until after 3 months I finally had the right diagnosis and then ACDF surgery which finally resolved it. But I kept going because I had no choice, the pain was debilitating and normal life impossible. But for stuff you can live with, I unfortunately just don’t have the patience to keep trekking to a slew of doctors where the pattern of failure seems preordained. I’d rather spend my time differently and just live with minor complaints. But I do admire those who keep fighting!

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