“Health and wellness” are words often used together, because they compliment each other well; alone they are good, but together they’re great. The same goes for massages and meditation. It makes sense to read these two together, since they both deal with health and wellness, but have you ever heard of using the two techniques at the same time?
Using meditation, or “mindfulness,” with massage therapy can benefit and enhance both practices as well as create a whole new therapeutic experience.
Mindfulness is a mindset of being completely aware of the present moment and fully accepting of one’s thoughts, feelings, and current experience. One of the books that I’ve read about meditation called, Get Some Headspace, by Andy Puddicombe, teaches its readers about mindfulness and how to obtain it. It explains how meditation and the achievement of mindfulness can not only bring clarity to the mind, but it can also bring the mind “to its natural state of awareness, which is free of any bias or judgment.”
Benefits of Mindfulness
Why should someone meditate or seek mindfulness? Meditation is the practice of training the mind; creating a state of consciousness, and mindfulness is accomplished through meditation.
Achieving mindfulness can have some great benefits on one’s health and wellbeing. It can help manage stress, alleviate anxiety, improve one’s quality of sleep, enhance personal relationships, and increase brain function.
Achieving Mindfulness
From the book, Get Some Headspace, I learned how to approach, practice, and implement mindfulness through meditation. In the approach to mindfulness, Puddicombe instructs his readers to allow the mind and body to think and feel however it naturally wants to. He says that it’s not about controlling your thoughts and feelings, but about recognizing and accepting them. In one of the exercises, Puddicombe tells his readers to sit for a few minutes and focus on one physical sensation. He says it can be a pleasant or unpleasant feeling, but to focus on it for the duration of the exercise. I think that based on this exercise, using massage therapy on your body before meditation would be helpful in creating a more comfortable experience.
Massage Therapy and Meditation
Practicing meditation and implementing mindfulness promotes mental and physical awareness and acceptance, which can help you understand your body better. Body awareness is necessary for diagnosing and treating yourself with massage therapy. Using massage therapy before practicing meditation and mindfulness can prepare the body externally for the inner-self journey — making the pursuit an easier process by relieving your body of physical discomforts to create a more relaxing and comfortable experience — so that you can focus on other thoughts or physical sensations instead of pain or discomfort.