Photography by Sang An
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Much Ado About Touching
By Stephen Rae, July & August 2004
Massage feels great, but is it the pain reliever it’s cracked up to be? Our aching reporter takes a beating to discover the truth
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I greatly respect journalists who report from war zones and other dangerous
places. As for me, the most hazardous duty I ever pulled was covering a Mary
Kay convention. Still, I grabbed the chance when this magazine asked me to put
myself in harm's way by sampling five different kinds of massage
firsthand.
At first, the idea seemed exotic, but I soon discovered that massage
isn't a spa luxury anymore. Somehow it has gone mainstream. You've seen
those suburban nail parlors that offer Chinese Tuina massage—and on
summer days in my city you can practically trip over body-rubbers and their
portable massage tables. ("Yo, 10 dollars, check it out!")
No less than 21 percent of Americans had at least one massage last year, up
from 8 percent in 1997. And those 55 to 64 years of age make up the
fastest-growing segment of those getting rubbed.
Why are people lining up for massages? For one thing, it feels good.
"America is suffering from an epidemic of skin hunger," says Tiffany
Field, Ph.D., a developmental psychologist at the University of Miami School of
Medicine—and the undisputed queen of touch therapy.
For another, it's finally being taken seriously for healing. This is
partly in thanks to Field and her colleagues, who started the Touch Research
Institute in 1992. Her team has published more than 90 research papers on the
benefits of massage for everything from arthritis to migraines.
All this research has given classic massage some currency in the stuffy
world of medicine. And today, some insurance companies will even pay for it.
But it has also caused an explosion of massage techniques, each one claiming a
slightly different benefit. In the course of several weeks, I would sample
five. Fortunately, for the sake of journalism, I had more than a casual
interest in the process. My runner's knee was acting up (chronic pain), and
I'd injured my shoulder doing something wrong at the gym (acute, or
short-term, pain). For each of the rubs I took, I described my aches and let
the pros do their work. Here's what I found.
Like Yoga (but no experience needed)
Thai Massage
Thai massage is sometimes called the lazy man's yoga because the therapist
puts you in classic yoga poses and then holds you there to get maximum stretch.
It's done in loose-fitting clothes on a wrestling mat.
My session began with me being configured into the bow pose, a yoga move
that most closely resembles a suckling-pig-on-a-spit. Fortunately, I practice
yoga, so I wasn't too uncomfortable. Next, the masseur sat on me, grabbed
my ankles, and pushed his heel into my hamstring—a hip-rotation
stretch.
"YOW!" I said.
After rotating my hips halfway from here to Tibet, my masseur next stood on
me, leaning against the wall to take some of the weight off, and used the ball
of his foot to get in between the scapulas in my upper back, pressing on my
rhomboids and middle trap in order to push the scapulas away from my
spine—at least that's what he explained later.
"YOWSA!" I responded.
"Breathe into that area," he instructed—which I didn't
understand, since "that area" was my back. But I certainly huffed and
puffed a good deal. He then introduced me to the notion of good pain, which I
guess is pain that doesn't kill you but makes you stronger. And, most
important, brings on the healing.
After 90 minutes of this, I felt like pulled taffy. But I was surprised to
find how tension-relieving a full nelson could be. I felt as if I were
radiating endorphins, the body's natural painkillers. And my knees
felt…fine! No pain.
Outside, wandering home in a state of bliss, I was nearly mowed down by a
truck.
When Massage Goes Bad
Massage is good for people of all ages. But there are some conditions for which
massage—or massage in certain places—might not be beneficial. And
it could be downright harmful. So check with your doctor if you have any form
of cancer (e.g. lymphoma, skin cancer), phlebitis, the flu or other infectious
diseases, and certain cardiac problems before going for a massage. Also check
to see if you have any skin condition: rashes of any kind (whether due to
insect bites or plants), psoriasis, eczema. Make sure you let your massage
therapist know if you have any other acute or chronic diseases, after getting
an okay from your doctor.
Hands-on Freud
The Rosen Method
"The body remembers all of life's traumas," my Rosen Method
practitioner said, leaning over the massage table in the dim light of her tiny
studio apartment on Manhattan's Upper East Side. This practice holds that
experiences and memories are stored in the body in the form of stress, causing
chronic muscular tension and pain. By meeting the tension with gentle hand
pressure, monitoring the breathing, and asking questions, the practitioner
facilitates the release of stress and locked-up memories.
We started in silence with a refreshingly gentle series of hand movements
across my back. Her hands traveled up and down looking for tension, and then
hovered above that stressed area.
"What are you thinking?" she asked.
"I'm thinking about my car. My, uh, first one. I really loved that
car."
She rolled me over, onto my back, and when she started that same gentle
rubbing motion on my tight jaw, I was a goner. My eyeballs started rocking back
in their sockets, as if I were in a hypnotic trance. I started babbling about
my father, who had died recently, and our strained relationship.
"This is one powerful massage!" I told her afterward.
"It's not massage," she corrected me gently. Like many
practitioners of touch therapy, she preferred the word "bodywork."
(Legally, the distinction is murky; all massage is bodywork, but not vice
versa. A lot has to do with state licensing boards.)
Bodywork, schmodywork. This wasn't like any massage I'd ever
had.
It was voodoo.
Knot's Ending
Myofascial Release
Several different massage techniques are dedicated to ironing out knots in the
fascia—connective tissues that hold together the muscles of the body. The
best-known way of getting your fascia unknotted is through Rolfing, which has a
reputation for being painful. Not quite up for the intensity of Rolfing after
my Rosen experience, I had chosen something called myofascial release, a kind
of Rolfing lite.
"You're twisted," said the practitioner, not unkindly, as I
stretched out on the massage table. (Trying to be helpful, I had mentioned that
my left leg was slightly shorter than the right.)
He began by placing one hand on my sacrum—the triangular bone at the
base of the spine—and the other hand just below my navel; I felt them
gently pressing toward each other. "I'm feeling three-dimensionally
through your body to find where it is that you're constricted," he
told me. After a few moments this elicited a gurgling. "That's a good
indication the organs are starting to relax," he said.
No, it was actually gas, I said.
"Any release is a good release," he countered.
I was relieved when he began pancaking his way up to my pecs and shoulders;
I was even more relieved when his kneading took away my shoulder pain.
Two fer One
Ayurvedic Massage
"You have a lot of aggravated pitta," declared the director of an
Ayurvedic spa in midtown Manhattan.
And this was just walking in the door.
Ayurvedic medicine is getting a lot of attention these days largely due to
the fame of its leading proponent, bestselling author and inspirational speaker
Deepak Chopra. In the simplest terms, this healing system is based on the
ancient Indian notion that to heal the body you must also heal the spirit.
"The eyes are the seat of the doshas, and your pitta dosha—the
fire element—is unbalanced," she explained.
I asked what she meant. She said my eyes looked strained—probably from
all the time I spend in front of a computer.
One Ayurvedic specialty is the Abhyanaga, the four-handed massage, in my
case administered by two women, Violet and Violetta. I lay on a massage table,
on my stomach, under sheets, slathered with an unctuous, fragrant oil
formulated for my specific dosha, the three principles that govern the mind and
body balance, Vata, Pitta, and Kapha. The women stroked in tandem with such
synchronicity my back felt like the setting for a Busby Berkeley dance number.
The long, gliding strokes were similar to Swedish massage, the point work much
like shiatsu. It felt good, but I had to ask—was there anything
specifically, uh, Ayurvedic about this massage? Or was it just an amalgamation
of other stuff?
"I'm working with your marmas," answered Violet—or was
it Violetta?
"Is that like the shiatsu pressure points?"
"Not exactly," she said.
When it was over, a specially rigged curtain descended from the ceiling and
formed a tent around me with just my head protruding. The tent heated up and I
found myself shedding toxins in a personal steam bath. Nice.
I never did find out what marmas are.
The Western Way
Medical Massage
I decided that now I wanted a massage a health insurer might pay for, a medical
massage. Actually, most Western-style massage is recognized as therapeutic by
the medical establishment. But the kind that targets pain and injury directly,
such as sports massage, is most likely to be prescribed by a physician.
The kind I tried is called neuromuscular massage therapy (NMT), and it
borrows a lot from classic Swedish massage. Here, there's no talk of past
lives, childhood traumas, or marmas. There's a tell-me-where-it-hurts
pragmatism and a medical reason given if the rubbing has to go out of the pain
zone.
Firmly but gently, my masseuse used strokes of friction and pressure to
counter ischemia—a condition in which the blood doesn't flow properly
to the muscle. I can only tell you that it felt wonderful. This experience led
to my deepest and most enlightened massage insight: you don't need to be
mauled to feel the benefits of massage and you also don't have to
understand all the principles in order for the process to work.
After several days of having my skin pounded, shuffled, whisked, and
frisked, I felt like a million bucks.
Stephen Rae writes regularly for such publications as Newsweek, GQ,
and The New York Times Magazine.
Now, click into our interactive guide to
pressure points on the hand and foot to determine how to rub away problems
in other parts of your body.
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