Being someone who helps people relax you’d think I would be a very relaxed person. I am not. I’ve operated most of my life as a big ball of stress and passion. Laid back? Yes. I’m down for most adventures and can jive with most people. Chill? Sure? But I tend to be intense when you get me going about something I’m passionate about. I’m passionate about a lot of things. Relaxed? As in, lives with low stress levels and healthy stress coping skills? More so than ever, yet still learning.

I have now lived a thousand lives by the age of 32. Gnarly things have happened that have effected my stress baseline. I have learned so much about how to best help myself from pretty dark situations.

I know stress. I know how it feels and what is does to my body.

Swedish Massage is the one thing that can help me turn my nerves off. Calming down with Swedish Massage helps me have the spoons to do other self-care activities. Like having the focus and energy to cook vs. ordering out so that I can eat more nutrient dense food. It also helps me get better sleep.

I know I should consider getting a massage when I’m struggling with anxiety more than usual.

It is easy for my anxiety symptoms to snow ball in ways where it becomes really difficult to support myself. Because it is so mental focused, I lose connection with my body. Swedish Massage helps me connect with my body more efficiently than any other thing I know of.

When I was really working towards opening HBBM, I spent a lot of time on the computer. I think at the time I was setting up the website. Building a website is fun for me. I spent a great deal of time on it. I was in a good place emotionally and very focused mentally.

Yet, every morning I would wake up and cry. For no reason. Usually, I am very aware of my sorrows.

I scheduled a 60 minute Swedish Relaxation Massage at Truth Organic Spa in Grafton. I told her I wasn’t experiencing much body pain, but was busy building a business and crying a lot. She used specific grounding essential oils to support my nervous system. The massage was wonderful. The morning crying stopped.

As a Massage Therapist, I can take care of muscle pain most of the time myself. Relaxation with Swedish Massage is the difference between you rubbing your scalp, and someone else rubbing your scalp. There’s something about someone else helping us feel our muscles and tissues that drops us in to the parasympathetic nervous response. What is known as rest and digest, or being truly relaxed and at ease.

Swedish Massage is truly effective at helping lower our stress baselines. Lower stress levels means better heart, kidney, nervous, digestive system, etc health. For real.

When we live in constant stress, our body’s priorities change. Some systems slow down and others speed up. That state is useful. But living in it all the time, unable to support ourselves out of the loop, is dangerous. Most of the leading causes of illness and death are really results of chronic high stress and the inability (or lack of access) to cope in a healthful way.

Massage for stress management can help you help yourself more effectively. I have helped many people with mental stress through short term frequent multiple massages.

Knowing this from personal experience and witnessing it for other people is enough for me to understand the importance of dropping in to the body with the help of Swedish Massage or other relaxation centered bodywork. There are also studies if you want them. I will go through my searches and share sources this week.

If you’re finding it hard to really relax, Swedish Massage might be the thing to help you rest.

Schedule a Swedish Massage for yourself this week because it will help quiet your mind.