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So, what do we know? to try and trace the true origins of massage would be pretty futile, we can go back as far as ancient Chinese medical texts, some 5000 years old, but that just means it was widespread before the text was written.

From here we travel up through the Indian Ayurvedic scripts, 1000 years later, which describe body rubbing to prevent disease. About the same time in Egypt carvings were being made of Pharaoh Ptah-Hotep receiving a leg massage.

Records have shown that Egyptian workers were paid in body oil.

Cleopatra is on record as enjoying foot massages at dinners and not leaving out the Greeks the “father of medicine” Hippocrates in the 5th Century prescribed a scented bath and daily massage as a way towards health and fitness.

And not leaving out the Romans either, they had their man, Galen (AD 130-201), who spent some of his time patching up Gladiators so they were fit to fight, actually wrote books on massage and described different massage strokes and techniques.

 

Quite a list of good stuff really:

Promotes a general feeling of well being.

Helps to reduce ongoing stress.

Alleviates aches and pains.

Improves skin tone and texture.

Increased blood supply maintains muscle tone.

Increased removal of waste products within the muscle i.e. Lactic acid.

Alleviates muscle tension / prevents build up of tension.

Blood pressure ultimately lowered, pulse rate lowered.

Muscle elasticity and suppleness is improved.

And so the list goes on and you don’t get a regular massage

Because?