The Holistic Benefits of Aromatherapy Massage

If you’ve ever received an aromatherapy massage, you’ll know how beneficial it can be for your physical, mental and emotional health. An aromatherapy massage is one of the best ways to treat yourself after a crazy week or whenever you need a bit of R&R.

Aromatherapy is a holistic approach to healing the mind and body. It engages your sense of smell through essential oils, with unique fragrance profiles inducing different sensations of healing, mood change and overall rejuvenation. Combined with massage, which uses techniques such as rubbing, pressing and long-flowing movements to alleviate tension in the body, aromatherapy offers a slew of benefits.

Aromatherapy massage is one of the most popular treatments on a spa menu, and for anyone considering studying massage, it’s a must-learn. During an aromatherapy massage, fragrant essential oils are applied to the skin using a carrier oil and then absorbed into the skin. It’s also common practice to diffuse essential oils during an aromatherapy massage so that they can be inhaled.

What are essential oils?

Essential oils are compounds extracted from plants. The oils capture the plant’s scent or ‘essence’, with unique aromatic compounds giving each essential oil its characteristic essence.

Essential oils interact with your body in several ways. Inhaling the aromas can stimulate areas of your limbic system, which is the part of your brain involved in behavioural and emotional responses, the formation of storing memories, sexual arousal and learning.

Popular essential oils used in aromatherapy massage include:

• Peppermint: used to boost energy and aid digestion
• Lavender: used to relieve stress, soothe sore muscles and to promote sleep
• Sandalwood: used to calm nerves and help you stay focused
• Rose: used to reduce anxiety and enhance your mood
• Jasmine: used to boost libido and reduce feelings of depression
• Chamomile: used to aid relaxation, indigestion and arthritic pain
• Ylang-Ylang: used to treat headaches and nausea
• Tea Tree: used to fight infections and boost immunity
• Bergamot: used to improve skin conditions like eczema

True essential oils are the ones that have been changed the least during the extraction process. The more ‘pure’ the essential oil, the more healing properties you can expect.

What are the benefits of combining essential oils with massage?

As the therapeutic properties of essential oils are quickly absorbed into the skin, using aromatherapy together with massage can significantly enhance the relief of pain, swelling and healing after injuries and can ease the symptoms of many medical conditions.

Massage, one of the oldest healing traditions, can manipulate muscles through applied pressure to reveal a feeling of deep calm and relaxation while stimulating the lymphatic system. This works to maintain healthy immunity, to drain stagnant fluids, regenerate tissues and detoxify the body by filtering out foreign substances and toxins.

By adding essential oils like lavender, rose and jasmine to a massage, you can aid and prevent conditions such as depression, anxiety and insomnia. For cancer, studies have shown that aromatherapy massage performed twice a week can lower levels of stress, whilst improving the immune system.

Essential oils will take your massage to the next level, decreasing anxiety, relieving headaches, improving circulation, enhancing mental wellbeing, soothing aching muscles and heightening relaxation. Why wouldn’t you add essential oils to your massage?

Why aromatherapy massage feels so good?

Combining essential oils with massage brings two therapeutic practices together to produce outstanding results. Essential oils and massage are a match made in heaven and used by therapists all over the world, aromatherapy is as heavenly as it gets.

A massage on its own is relaxing and soothing but when you add the powers of aromatherapy, it can noticeably improve the results. Want less stress in your life? Want to feel better about yourself? Want fewer health worries and a clearer mind? These are all things that can be achieved through aromatherapy massage.

The process of aromatherapy is just like any other massage. After scheduling an appointment with a therapist, you should discuss any issues you have or areas you need to work on and advise the therapist of any conditions or allergies you may have. Once you choose your oils, or have the therapist choose them for you, it’s time to un-robe and get comfy on the massage table. From here, your heavenly experience will begin.

During your massage, your massage therapist will place the essential oils on specific spots of your body, while you deeply inhale the aromas. Not only will you feel the immediate results, you’ll experience long-term results and deep relaxation for the rest of your day. As with any massage, be sure to drink plenty of water following your massage. Water is essential to flush out the toxins that will have been driven out by the stimulation of your lymphatic system.

Customising your aromatherapy massage

Given the range of massage techniques and the variety of essential oils that can be used for different purposes, aromatherapy massage is a way to create a more personalised approach to keeping the body and mind healthy. Aromatherapy massage can be customised according to individual need, and using safely formulated essential oil massage blends can enhance the benefits of massage further again.

Massage blends can be formulated for an individual so that they focus upon easing sore muscles, easing stress, promoting relaxation or even encouraging sensuality. Massage blends can be applied to soothe joint pain, aid muscle tone, reduce inflammation and heal connective tissue when combined with the right massage techniques. You can also ask for more general requests from your massage and massage blend too, such as energising, uplifting or decongesting massage. The bottom line is, massage and essential oils can be used to address any preferences you might have!

An aromatherapy massage is a popular, multi-purpose way of using supplemental care for a range of health issues. For massage therapists, it’s a lucrative and beautiful modality to add to your massage practice. Learning aromatherapy takes just a small investment of time and money, but will add a new dimension to your healing work and enjoyment of life. It’s a rewarding career option, so why not learn the art and get started?