kneading can reduce muscle soreness and improve pain symptoms, even among people with
osteoarthritis.
In fact, pain reduction—along with depression relief—is one of the benefits that research has
most consistently linked to massage, says Tiffany Field, director of the Touch Research
Institute at the University of Miami.
Some of her work has shown that massage may improve immune system function in people
with breast cancer and leukemia, along with reducing their physical and emotional pain.
Asked how massage could provide so many health perks, Field says several fMRI studies have
shown that massage increases blood flow in areas of the brain associated with mood and
stress regulation.
“Pressure receptors under the skin, when stimulated, increase vagal activity,” she says,
referring to the vagus nerve, a major component of the human nervous system that plays a
role in autonomic functions like heart rate, breathing and digestion. Increased activity in the
vagus nerve could have—among other benefits—a meditation-like calming effect, which
would explain the drop in cortisol and other stress-related symptoms.
When you bump your elbow or knee and experience pain, your first instinct is to rub the pain
site, Field says. This plays into something called the “gate theory” of pain, which theorizes
that your brain is unable to fully register painful stimuli when related touch receptors are
activated. “This is another way pain might be alleviated by massage,” she says.
In terms of improving immune function, she says the hormone and nervous system shifts that
take place following massage may protect the immune system’s natural killer cells—a type of
white blood cell that fights off viruses and helps prevent tumor growth.
But all of this is controversial. Some review studies have found only weak evidence that
massage offers pain-reducing benefits. Also, when it comes to proving a massage is good for
you, there’s one big hurdle Field and other researchers have trouble clearing: it’s almost
impossible to design a massage study that eliminates the placebo effect. After all, there is no
sugar-pill version of a massage that could be compared to a “real” massage in order to tease
out the treatment’s non-placebo effects.
But most people only care if—not how—massage works. While the latter is really a question
for medical researchers, the existing evidence indicates that, for a range of health conditions,
it does. (Some studies on preterm infants have even shown massage can promote vagus
activity and markers of growth.)
It’s still tricky to determine how much is ideal, Field says. “Most of the studies have looked at
one massage a week,” she says. But there haven’t been many comprehensive studies
comparing different massage frequencies. “I always say that it’s probably like exercise, where
more is better,” she says.
Whether you can afford regular massages, or if you only have 5 minutes a day for some foam
rolling, both should do you some good, Field says.