A massage is a wonderful way to observe May as National Women’s Health Care Month and access the wealth of creativity that lies below your conscious awareness. In our stressed culture, where stress-related disorders make up between 80-and-90 percent of the ailments that bring people to family-practice physicians, massage can help you both physically and mentally. Of course, stress is a part of the daily routine whether you are trying to hurry a dawdling toddler along in the morning rush, receiving a positive performance review, or dodging another speeding car while changing lanes on the freeway, our body reacts with a “fight or flight” mode. As a result, all our attention is focused on the incident at hand, and your body often needs help refocusing. Various hormones that get amped up during the “fight or flight” response works to shut down the communication between different parts of our brains. When stressed, your brain shuts down and tunnel thinking occurs. To be creative, you need to be relaxed. Fortunately, once you turn off the stress hormones, your body recovers quickly.

The healing touch of massage allows us to tap into our creativity by helping us temporarily turn off our conscious brains allowing information just below our awareness to come into focus. While we are in a relaxed state, we are able to let our thoughts drift in random patterns and suddenly answers to nagging questions will appear. It’s almost as if the answers were waiting for you to open a drawer, or find a hidden key. You never know what’s trying to get through until you nurture yourself with a massage and watch what appears.