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The Nuance
The Science-Backed Benefits of Massage
Research uncovers how the right touch fights pain and boosts your immune system
Think back to the last time you banged your head on a cupboard or knocked your knee on a table. The first thing you probably did, apart from cursing, was knead the offended body part with your fingers. You didn’t think about it; you just did it.
Researchers have an explanation for your instinct to massage away pain. “It’s called the gate theory,” says Tiffany Field, director of the Touch Research Institute at the University of Miami.
Field says that pressure receptors under the skin transmit information to the brain more quickly than pain receptors. If both pain and pressure receptors are transmitting at the same time, the signals from the pressure receptors tend to override and partly mask the pain signals. Massage is one way to activate these pressure receptors, and therefore “close the gate” that allows pain signals to reach the brain, she says.
The gate control theory is just one explanation for some of the pain-reducing benefits research has linked to massage therapy. For example, a 2017 study in the journal Pain Medicine found 10 massage sessions spread out during 12 weeks led to “clinically significant” drops in pain scores among people with chronic lower back pain.
Other research has linked massage to pain relief — including in people with cancer, autoimmune disorders, and chronic pain conditions such as fibromyalgia.
How is this possible? Field says that along with interfering with the transmission of pain signals, massage also increases activity in the vagus nerve, which connects the brain and spine to the organs, and it helps control some aspects of the parasympathetic nervous system. She explains that elevated parasympathetic nervous system (PNS) activity is associated with “rest and digest” states — as opposed to the “fight-or-flight” states associated with sympathetic nervous system (SNS) activity. Basically, the PNS helps mellow you out.
By increasing vagal and PNS activity, massage can help lower the body’s circulating levels of stress-related hormones like cortisol, she says. A 2010 study from Cedars-Sinai Medical…
