Special Korean Scrub Bath

Peer-review­ed medi­cal rese­arch has shown that the bene­fits of mas­sa­ge inclu­de pain reli­ef, redu­ced trait anxie­ty and depres­si­on, and tem­pora­ri­ly redu­ced blood pres­su­re, heart rate, and sta­te of anxie­ty. Addi­tio­nal tes­ting has shown an immedia­te incre­a­se and expe­di­ted reco­very peri­ods for mus­cle per­for­mance. Theo­ries behind what mas­sa­ge might do inclu­de blo­cking pain, acti­vat­ing the para­sym­pa­the­tic ner­vous sys­tem, which may sti­mu­la­te the release of endor­phins and sero­to­nin, pre­ven­ting fibro­sis or scar tis­sue, incre­a­sing the flow of lymph, and impro­ving sleep, but such effects are yet to be sup­por­ted by well-desi­gned cli­ni­cal studies.

Mas­sa­ge is hin­de­red from reaching the gold stan­dard of sci­en­ti­fic rese­arch, which inclu­des pla­ce­bo-con­trol­led and dou­ble blind cli­ni­cal tri­als. Deve­lo­ping a “sham” manu­al the­ra­py for mas­sa­ge would be dif­fi­cult sin­ce even light touch mas­sa­ge could not be assu­med to be com­ple­te­ly devoid of effects on the sub­ject. It would also be dif­fi­cult to find a sub­ject that would not noti­ce that they were get­ting less of a mas­sa­ge, and it would be impos­si­ble to blind the the­ra­pist. Mas­sa­ge can employ ran­do­mi­zed con­trol­led tri­als, which are publis­hed in peer review­ed medi­cal jour­nals. This type of stu­dy could incre­a­se the credi­bi­li­ty of the pro­fes­si­on becau­se it dis­plays that pur­por­ted the­ra­peu­tic effects are reproducible.

Pain reli­ef: Reli­ef from pain due to mus­cu­lo skeletal inju­ries and other cau­ses is cited as a major bene­fit of mas­sa­ge. Acupres­su­re or pres­su­re point mas­sa­ge may be more bene­fi­cial than clas­sic Swe­dish mas­sa­ge in reli­e­ving back pain.  Howe­ver, a meta-stu­dy con­duc­ted by sci­en­tists at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Illi­nois at Urba­na-Cham­pai­gn fai­led to find a sta­tis­ti­cal­ly signi­fi­cant reduc­tion in pain immedia­te­ly fol­lowing treatment.

Sta­te anxie­ty: Mas­sa­ge has been shown to redu­ce sta­te anxie­ty, a tran­si­ent mea­su­re of anxie­ty in a given situation.

Blood pres­su­re and heart rate: Mas­sa­ge has been shown to tem­pora­ri­ly redu­ce blood pres­su­re and heart rate.

Trait anxie­ty: Mas­sa­ge has been shown to redu­ce trait anxie­ty; a person’s gene­ral sus­cep­ti­bi­li­ty to anxiety.

Depres­si­on: Mas­sa­ge has been shown to redu­ce sub cli­ni­cal depression.