Breath and Deep Tissue Massage

If someone presses deep into your soft tissue and its painful, it’s understandable that you might decide that deep tissue massage isn’t for you. BUT! You have a degree of control over your response to deep pressure, and with a thoughtful massage therapist, you can absolutely experience great benefit and perhaps even enjoy the experience. It’s simply a matter of using your breath to take control of your nervous system.

The nervous system is just one of the 11 systems in your body that function without your attention. It’s responsible for the ‘Fight or Flight’ response and also responsible for producing hormones that tell your body to rest, relax and repair. A lot of people in this day and age experience stress in their everyday lives and stress is a trigger for the sympathetic nervous system (the fight-or-flight part of the nervous system). A very effective way to activate the Parasympathetic Nervous System (the rest and repair part) is to breathe; specifically, to consciously make your exhale longer than your inhale and after the parasympathetic nervous system is activated, your body knows that it is safe and the muscles that have been (or are prepared to) contract can relax.

What all that means is that if your therapist is using firm pressure, simply make a conscious effort to extend the length of your exhale (longer than the inhale) and continue to breathe DEEPLY bringing the breath all the way down to the bottom of your belly. You’ll be amazed at how much more quickly your muscles will be able to relax, how much more pleasant the overall experience can be, and how much longer the results will last.