Aromatherapy Massage for the Muscles

How aromatherapy massage can help with relaxing the muscles

Muscles enable the body to move through interaction with the bones and joints. Whereas the skeleton is a scaffold of bones that gives the body sufficient rigidity to stay upright, the muscles connected to the bones allow movement. These muscles are known as voluntary muscles, because we control them consciously; they are the muscles that come into play whenever we decide to move.

Voluntary muscles are also known as striated (meaning striped) muscles, because under a microscope they have a stripy appearance, and as skeletal muscles, because they are attached to the skeleton. Voluntary muscles are directly affected by massage and are therefore of primary concern to the aromatherapist. However, there are two other types of muscles that are indirectly affected by massage.

Involuntary muscles - as the name suggests - are not under our conscious control. Also known as visceral muscles, they make up the body's internal organs, and are also called smooth muscles because under a microscope they appear smooth and sheetlike. Cardiac muscles is highly specialized muscle that makes up the heart.

These muscles are indirectly affected by massage through the relaxation of the whole body. Aromatherapy massage using anti-spasmodic essential oils relaxed involuntary muscle, and essential oils with cardiac tonic properties strengthen the heart.

How aromatherapy massage can help for muscles

• As we age or if we take insufficient exercise, muscle tone is gradually lost, and the muscles appear and feel flabby. Massage can help to improve muscle tone a little, but exercise is of more benefit in this respect. Before you start to massage, feel your muscles at different times to learn the difference between normal muscle tone and tense and flabby muscles.
• When you massage, you work the voluntary muscles underneath the skin and connective tissues. There is always a slight tension in the muscles (called muscle tone), which holds the skeletal bones in place. After prolonged or vigorous exercise or bad posture, he muscles become tense, fatigued and painful. Massage releases the pain and tension and increases circulation, helping to dispel the waste products produced in the muscles from strenuous exertion.