Fab Your Life: How to Keep Your New Year’s Wellness Resolutions with Massage Therapy.

At Fab Your Life many of our staff make New Year’s Resolutions. How are your New Year’s Resolutions going for 2020? The American Psychological Association estimates that 93% of people make New Year’s Resolutions every year and of those resolutions 55% of them were based on health and wellness. Resolutions can be challenging to keep, only 8% of people who make them actually keep them. Making new pledges to eat better or lose weight can be demoralizing and daunting. But everyone deserves to feel good and everyone should focus on their wellness. One effective and easy way to do this is by making time for yourself for massage and physiotherapy when needed.

Making a commitment to receive regular massages can be one of the most important, if not the most importance, pledges you’ll make yourself. While many people set high goals for themselves to work-out more or lose weight; one of the simplest resolutions you can make is to concentrate on activities to add to your overall wellness. At Fab Your Life fitness many of our clients come to us when they have suffered an injury either through a sport injury or an accident. But we have also realized over our years in operation while working with many of our clients that many times these injuries are exacerbated or even caused by stress. That’s where proper massage therapy comes in.

At Fab Your Life Fitness in Markham, Ontario we have an incredible range of physiotherapists and massage therapists who can work with you to help create and maintain your wellness plan. Our massage therapists are highly trained professionals who understand the complexities of life and how hard it can be to keep on track with goals. While many people insist the way to wellness is to simplify your life and reduce stress we understand that this can be much easier said than done! We find one of the most effective ways to manage stress is through regular massage therapy.

The importance of stress reduction can’t be overestimated. Stress can affect not just your mind but every part of your body. Walking around and going about your daily business, whether it be work or other activities, while stressed can increase the tension in your muscles. Not only does this lead to the common complaint of muscle pain and stiffness but it actually affects your entire body. Stress can cause a wide range of symptoms that can turn into chronic conditions.

So what is stress exactly and how can massage help? Glad you asked!

Stress is the human body’s way of naturally responding to stressful life events. In fact, stress can be thought initially a life-saving reaction – if you are suddenly in danger your body will throw off a number of chemical responses that can be very helpful. If you are walking down the street and a car accidentally swerves in your direction your nervous system kicks in and allows your body to jump out of the way. The actual physical response your body goes through in emergency situations includes the quick release of hormones, including adrenaline and cortisol – your muscles tighten, your senses become sharper and most often your heart pounds faster. Very suddenly your body can perform quite quickly and you get a burst of strength. If you are jumping out of the way of a car heading toward you then all of this will be very handy! But over a longer term, when our modern life causes more and more stress responses, this constant increase in the stress response can lead to complex lingering health problems.

While it can be hard to diagnose, stress has been linked to serious long-term health issues. The human nervous system is incredibly robust, but it can have trouble managing constant stress; the constant ‘turning-on’ of your nervous system into its stress response can unfortunately activate your nervous system more and more until it doesn’t know when to shut off the emergency life saving signals. This means your body can start living in a heightened state of stress – and this is when things get serious. Chronic stress has been linked to a heightened risk of heart attack, increase of aches and pains, severely interrupted sleep, stomach upset and disruption of the digestive system, the suppression of your immune system and can lead to serious bouts of anxiety, depression and other mental health issues.

At Fab Your Life we work with our clients to identify ways in which massage can help their symptoms of chronic stress and alleviate even their most serious symptoms. Massage is a great way to relax your muscles and activate the release of ‘feel-good’ endorphins that help relax the nervous system. Our trained massage therapists work to manipulate your muscles and soft tissues to promote relaxation and enhance their function. Not only can massage help you physically feel better, but it can help calm the mind and alleviate symptoms of anxiety and depression. Massage therapy can also greatly alleviate pain which will lead to a much better sense of wellness. Regular massage therapy appointments can also lead to a healthier heart and circulatory system. Massage therapy can reduce your blood pressure and heart rate.

We always recommend that our clients check-out their health plan at work; often massages are covered which means that you can set up a message therapy schedule with little to no cost to you.

The advantage of visiting Fab Your Life is that our team of physiotherapists and message therapists work with you from your first visit to identify any issues you may have and devise a way we can help you. We are located in Markham and have clients visit us from all over the GTA.

Book a visit with us today so we can help you keep your New Year’s Resolutions and get you on a path to wellness.