I am catching up with posting online my articles.
Practically and technically speaking massage does not relieve stress because massage as such helps only to relieve the symptoms of stress which are: tiredness and muscle tension and some other related secondary symptoms and problems.
Although we normally don't pay attention to this little detail this should be obvious for everybody... shouldn't it ?
Stress comes from work, problems with money, problems within the relationship, emotional problems etc. which later manifests itself within the body in the form of tiredness, tension etc.
I put so much attention to this point about the stress and the symptoms of stress because once this is clear - and not everybody has it clear within their head - then the person can decide whether s/he wants to deal with the symptoms or eliminate the stress from his/her life by addressing and correcting the cause of the stress.
And it is obvious that I cannot correct the cause of the stress of my patient with the session or 2 of massage because it is obvious that my massage for example will not change the stressful environment at work.
But here comes another point... if I have a client who comes to me time after time with the same problem ( stress related symptoms ) and despite the advice on how to address the cause of the problem s/he doesn't correct it then I look at it as situation of abuse of my services and in this case I do not hesitate to deny to do more massage treatments for this particular person.
Massage can be a great tool to help a person overwhelmed by the stress to literally take off the pressure of the shoulders, to realign the body, to recuperate and regain strength so that this person can deal with the cause of the problem. But if the person does not realise this and only comes to get the massage just to treat the symptoms, then this abuse and it will eventually lead to more problems and consequences resulting from not taking responsibility and correcting the cause of the stress. And if the massage therapist doesn't address this appropriately and only counts the money received form the customers who come to deal with the symptoms, then s/he himself becomes the abuser and enters into the cycle of consequences which sooner or later will bite him hard.