Swedish Body Massage

What is a Swedish massage?

Swedish massage is incredibly enjoyable. It is restorative, working with the muscles and soft tissues to provide calm and balance, and even have an overall effect on your wellbeing. The goal of Swedish massage is to improve your circulation and promote relaxation through soothing your muscles. It’s therefore quite different from deep tissue massage or sports massage. The techniques involve soft strokes over areas which are more prone to pain, or without much muscle coverage. Where the muscles are thicker, the pressure is changed and the massage is deeper. 

There are a number of different Swedish massage techniques, but all combine to deliver a delightfully relaxing massage through gentle circular pressure. Swedish massage techniques include: 

Effleurage – a type of gentle stroking, including long strokes.

Petrissage – what you think of when muscles are kneaded.

Vibration – includes light tapping and other techniques which can cause the body to lightly shake or vibrate.

Hacking – includes the karate-style ‘chops’ you may also associate with massage.

What are the benefits of Swedish massage?

Easing of muscle pain

Whether you’ve overdone it in the gym, or you suffer from long-term or chronic muscle or joint pain, Swedish massage can help to alleviate pain. It can target particular pain points, reducing the muscle tension in the area, allowing pain to ease. For many, this natural way of managing pain is welcomed in preference to taking pain medication. 

Increased blood circulation

The different massage techniques improve blood circulation to the areas being worked on. This has a number of different benefits. The increased warmth is soothing and eases sore muscles. But it also helps your body to drain away the toxins we all store up simply through everyday life. Whilst the massage will leave you feeling deeply relaxed, afterwards you may experience a real boost in energy as a result of increased blood circulation. Blood circulation helps improve recovery, as fresh oxygenated blood flows more easily to the area.

Increased range of movement

By gently working the ligaments and muscles, this massage can help to improve your range of movement, keeping you supple and agile. The joints are able to release their natural lubricants. In addition, it may incorporate some gentle stretches into your massage, and these too can help to improve your range of movement.

Reduction in physical stress

Stress can cause our muscles to tense; we’re bracing for the fight or flight response. However, we need to take care to allow our muscles to relax again, discharging the tension when we haven’t fought or run! Swedish massage alleviates the tension, allowing the muscles to relax and removing the imprint of physical stress. In turn, this can also help improve your posture as muscles are no longer forced to overcompensate. Many people find that Swedish massage relieves tension headaches.

Reduction in emotional stress

Unfortunately, many of us live stressful lives with pressures on our time and causes for worry. Being pampered and lulled into relaxation for an hour or 90 minutes allows all of that emotional stress to ebb away.

Aids immunity

Regular Swedish massage has been shown to support and aid a healthy immune system. This is most likely a by-product of the fact that the massage de-stresses the body. Stress has a nasty negative effect on immunity, so anything you do to reduce stress will help to naturally improve your immunity.

Releases feel good chemicals

Massage has been scientifically proven to release a range of feel good hormones and chemicals in our bodies, such as oxytocin, serotonin, endorphins and dopamine. It’s not just that it makes you feel good by giving you time out and much needed attention, it actually has an effect at a chemical level to make you feel amazing.

Improve sleep

One of the chemicals we mention above – serotonin – is vital for healthy sleep patterns. It helps you to drop off more easily and also stay asleep. Many people opt to have their massage in the late afternoon or evening precisely so that they can drift off to the Land of Nod afterwards.