Thor’s Thoughts on Massage:

What is massage? A quick search for a definition on the internet defines massage as “the rubbing and kneading of muscles and joints of the body with the hands, especially to relieve tension or pain.” This isn’t wrong, but it isn’t an all encompassing definition. I would describe massage as touch that interacts with soft tissue to promote comfort. This still does not provide much of a window into the world of massage. Lets dive deeper.

There are several perspectives through which one can view massage. We could view massage as a means to interact with muscular tension in an organic bodily system. Massage could be a method of pain management. Massage could be a means of modulating the central nervous system. We could look at massage as a set of mechanical forces that moves fluid around in the body, or even as a method of stimulating the body’s natural processes of metabolism and immune defense. Massage could even be a spiritual experience. Obviously, massage does all these things and more, but each person who receives massage is going to likely have one (or more) of these goals: reduce pain, reduce anxiety, improve mobility, improve health, feel good.

Giving massage can be tricky because no two human bodies are identical. Even identical twins experience the world differently from one another and therefore would have different experiences with massage since their life experiences are not identical. Massage interacts with the psyche as well as the physical body. Each person has a different experience of tactile (touch) sensations and will experience more or less pain than their peers, and each person views all their experiences through their own personal lens of past experience. Some people take pleasure from a deep massage while others avoid the discomforting aches and pains that deeper work can bring them. Some people just want massage to be a time when they are free to check out from conscious thought. I want to explore some of my ideas on massage through this blog format.