Massage Therapy Is an Antidote to Life’s Inevitable Bouts of Burnout!
In today’s hustle and bustle world, being too busy, too scheduled, and in a constant state of overwhelm can lead to burnout. The reality is that life is all about ebb and flow. We all experience these waves throughout life. When those waves roll in gently, our minds and bodies can contend with them, processing the periodic ups and downs of events in our lives.
It is when the waves come crashing down repeatedly that those stressors build up because there isn’t time or energy to process or rest, sort of like being caught in a riptide, where each time you come up for a breath of air, a wave rolls over you, pulling you underwater again. Consequently, ongoing bouts of stress that can’t be appropriately mitigated can lead to a state of burnout!
We all have our ways of coping with expected, or unexpected pressures, both personal and professional. In general, though, collectively we are not very good at managing our own self-care, especially when we are under duress. Receiving weekly massages can help you break the cycle of burnout before serious and detrimental effects take place!
How Massage Can Re-Balance Your Mind and Body
There are many ways that massage therapy services can be extremely advantageous to our health and wellness. We are highlighting five ways that massage can be just what you need in your life’s toolbox to battle burnout:
“Just for You” Time
A lot of us struggle with setting aside adequate time for self-care, however, it is critically important in order to counterbalance all of life’s stressors in our go-go-go 24/7 world. With our internal switch continually in the “on” position, it keeps us engaged with work, activities, family, friends, and home…with so much to be done, there is little to no time for downtime!
Your mind and body cannot keep up that kind of non-stop pace for an extended period. When we ask that of it on an ongoing basis, eventually your health and mental well-being will be impacted. So, it is important to be intentional and schedule or carve out “Just for You” time!
Receiving regular massage therapy services is a fantastic way to give yourself the TLC you deserve. Releasing tension in tight muscles allows your body to regroup and your mind to reset. A quiet, low-lit massage room, with beautiful, transcendental music, calms the senses, which in turn lets your parasympathetic nervous system kick in, also known as the relaxation response”, slowing things down and allowing your body to rest and repair itself.
Hitting the Reset Button
The tendency is to feel guilty about hitting the occasional “Reset” button. It shouldn’t be that way, so challenging the narrative that getting a massage is somehow a luxury needs to be debunked. The benefits of massage have been extensively studied and researched, and the list is long around how your body and mind positively respond to therapeutic massage. Here are a few of the advantages:
- Reduces stress and increases relaxation
- Lessens pain and muscle tension
- Improves circulation, energy, and alertness
- Lowers heart rate and blood pressure
- Improves immune function
- Increases flexibility and range of motion
Making your self-care a priority isn’t always easy, but it is a necessity as a means to mitigate the slow drip and degrading effects of our busy lives. The proverbial reset button shouldn’t be thought of as a luxury “nice-to-do”, but a regularly scheduled “must-do”, analogous to putting gas in the tank of our cars if we hope for them to run!
Striking Back at Burnout
Burnout is a cumulative and chronic condition, so by making some dedicated changes to your life you can keep it at arm’s length. We all have times in our lives when we step into a messy tangle of commitments and deadlines.
By shifting your perspective when those days or weeks, or even months, of seemingly endless responsibilities occur, and by carving out time for that well-earned and much needed downtime, you can strike back at burnout and take back control.
Massage and other wellness therapy interventions can play a significant role for many individuals in maintaining a sense of equilibrium, both physically and psychologically. The anxiety-reducing and mood-enhancing benefits of massage therapy are something we could all use a little bit more of in our lives.
Burnout is a very real phenomenon, and it can happen to anyone. If you are sensing that you have hit a level of burnout, it is time to intervene. Long-term consequences of burnout can have profound effects on your mental and physical health that can lead to issues with work performance, relationships, and quality of life.
Life is far too short to be anything but happy and healthy. If you are struggling, don’t suffer in silence. Seek out help from a therapist or counselor, or a trusted confidante.
Self-care looks different for each of us, and we typically put ourselves last when it comes to it, but in times when life feels like it is spinning out of control, scheduling a therapeutic massage service can prove to be the perfect antidote.
If you are in need of a reset, why not book a massage with one of the incredible therapists at Aquarius Wellness today, your body, mind, and spirit will thank you!
Please click here to contact us with any questions, or you may go ahead and book online now.
We thank you for your interest in this important topic of “Burnout”, forewarned is forearmed, and our wish for all of you, as stated in our mantra at Aquarius, is to:
Be Calm
Be Serene
Be Restored
In Wellness,
The Aquarius Wellness Team
