Research Shows the Benefits of Massage Therapy
In an article published by the New York Times, researchers at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles recruited 53 healthy adults and randomly assigned 29 of them to a 45-minute session of deep-tissue Swedish massage and the other 24 to a session of light massage.
The study, sponsored by the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, a division of the National Institutes of Health, found that a single session of massage caused biological changes.
Volunteers who received Swedish massage experienced significant decreases in levels of the stress hormone cortisol in blood and saliva. Participants who had the light massage experienced greater increases in oxytocin, a hormone associated with contentment.
The entire study and findings were published online in The Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine.
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News articles courtesy of Linda Wheatland Smith D.C., P.C.