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    • Massage in the Mainstream
    You've been at your desk for ten hours, and lunch was a quick sandwich and chips. Your boss remains a bear, despite your galley slave efforts, and your neck is a rope of knots.

    Sometimes the bump and grind of work takes its toll on the body. Surveys show more people are seeking relief through therapeutic massage.

    "Massage therapy is a complementary therapy, not alternative anymore," says Dr. Brad Stuart, Hospice Medical Director for the Visiting Nurse Association and Hospice of Northern California. "It's of tremendous benefit."

    Fifty-four percent of primary care physicians and family practitioners said they encourage patients to use therapeutic massage, according to a national survey by the State University of New York at Syracuse. A study in a 1998 issue of Canadian Family Physician shows that 83 percent of physicians find massage therapy a useful adjunct to their own practice. Also, 72 percent of physicians perceived an increasing demand for massage therapy for patients.

    Therapeutic massage involves the manipulation of the soft tissue to prevent and alleviate pain, discomfort, muscle spasm, and stress, according to the AMTA. It improves circulation, lymphatic drainage, digestion, skeletal, muscular and nervous systems. It can also help with conditions such as allergies, anxiety, sports injuries, insomnia, arthritis, asthma and bronchitis, carpal tunnel syndrome, headaches due to muscle tension and stress.

    "I see a lot of patients for stress-related injuries," says Victor Pirtle, a licensed massage therapist in Nashville, TN. "Most of them are in the lower back, shoulder, and knee."

    Added stress combined with a sedentary lifestyle set many people up for a variety of aches and injuries, he says, and happiness and well being play an essential role in good health.

    "Many injuries are stress-related, and if a person is healthy in spirit, they are not as likely to be injured from day to day," he says. "But if a person isn't happy, the stress of the job, family life, or whatever, they are wide open to a lot of injuries."