{"id":118,"date":"2012-01-31T14:56:41","date_gmt":"2012-01-31T19:56:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/feelintegrated.com\/resources\/?p=118"},"modified":"2012-05-23T14:05:56","modified_gmt":"2012-05-23T18:05:56","slug":"massage-benefits-are-more-than-skin-deep","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/feelintegrated.com\/resources\/2012\/01\/massage-benefits-are-more-than-skin-deep\/","title":{"rendered":"Massage Benefits Are More Than Skin Deep"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>In this article<\/a> in the New York Times’ Vital Signs column, researchers found that volunteers who received Swedish massage experienced significant decreases in levels of the stress hormone cortisol<\/a> in blood and saliva, and in arginine vasopressin<\/a>, a hormone that can lead to increases in cortisol. They also had increases in the number of lymphocytes, white blood cells that are part of the immune system.<\/p>\n

Volunteers who had the light massage experienced greater increases in oxytocin, a hormone associated with contentment, than the Swedish massage group, and bigger decreases in adrenal corticotropin hormone, which stimulates the adrenal glands to release cortisol.<\/p>\n

The study<\/a> was published online in The Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine.<\/p>\n

The lead author, Dr. Mark Hyman Rapaport, chairman of psychiatry and behavioral neurosciences at Cedars-Sinai, said the findings were \u201cvery, very intriguing and very, very exciting \u2014 and I\u2019m a skeptic.\u201d<\/p>\n