The Benefits of Massage for Depression

Massage can be a very good way of relieving depression, or kick starting us back onto the path of happy living!

My theory for this is that depression is often a result of lingering on past events or worrying about the future. Massage brings us back into our bodies, which, with their incredible abilities to keep a healthy homeostatic balance, are constantly sending us information on how we are doing now. We filter out most of these messages as there would simply be too much info to be useful, and generally only hear the distress call of what is most urgently needing our attention.

Massage helps us tune into our bodies, allowing some of the other messages get through.

Most of them telling us everything is fine here...

little toe's fine, big toe's fine, calves are fine, oh now you've done that calves are really fine!!!

...with all these good messages, we realise that actually things are pretty good right now.

We can tune into these good messages with meditation and similar conscious practices too, however the nature of depression is that tends to stop us doing this.