Adolescent & Pre-Teen Massage
Our youth needs massage too! Massage can help with students in sports, it can help with depression, anger and anxiety, insomnia & general achy areas that need to be free of tension. Parents/ Guardians must also be present in the room for anyone under the age of 16.
Pre- teen 10- 12
Teen 13-17
A beneficial therapeutic relationship can develop between teenagers and a massage therapist. During the years when adolescents need adult confidantes but keep their parents at arm’s length, the practitioner can become a supportive, trusted adult in a teenager’s life. The session itself can be a way to deal with all the physical and emotional issues. Social media, society, the media can all create or add to the stressors the teen is already encountering. Massage can help teens stay grounded and learn a safe and holistic way to treat their bodies and minds. As parents include massage therapy with their self care regimen, there’s no reason why anyone should think any different as to how and why treatment would be any different for our growing son’s and daughter’s.
1. Athletic Injuries
High school sports are often very demanding and since high schoolers are still growing they tend to be injured in different ways. Some of the most common injuries among young athletes include sprains, strains, growth plate injuries, Osgood Schlatter’s Disease, repetitive motion injuries. Girls are most likely to experience athletic injuries in gymnastics, cheerleading, swimming and field hockey while boys are most likely to experience athletic injuries while playing football, soccer, lacrosse and basketball. Given that teen athletes can be more vulnerable to injury and overuse than adults, it makes sense to offer them the same opportunity for healing and pain relief.
2. Stress
Massage is a wonderful stress-buster for teenagers. Oftentimes when we think about stress we think it’s just an adult condition; however, teens experience a myriad of different stressors. Some of the stressors teens deal with include the following:
- Dating & Friendships
- Testing, Homework
- College Prep
- Exceedingly-High Expectations
- Relationships
- Finances
- Puberty
- Aches & Pains from Sports (Osgood Schlatter’s Disease)
- Family Relationships
- Marriages/ Divorces
- Being raised by a single parent
- Abuse & Negligence
- Employment
- Sleeplessness
3. Immune Support
There is a relationship between stress and the immune system. If stress hormones are chronically elevated, the hormone cortisol will destroy the healthy immune cells that fight viruses and tumors and keep the immune system healthy. If you can reverse that, you not only reduce stress but also reduce stress hormones, allowing the immune system to bounce back and do its job, which is to heal the body and keep it healthy.
4. Poor Body Image & Eating Disorders
Depression, social pressures regarding appearance, and participation in sports where leanness is valued such as gymnastics, ballet, diving, and wrestling are all associated with the development of eating disorders.
Studies done at the Touch Research Institute with women who struggled with either anorexia nervosa or bulimia showed that regular massage decreased anxiety level, increased levels of the feel-good hormone dopamine, and reduced depression.
5. PMS and Menstrual Pain
More & more female teenagers are put on anti-depressants and mood disorder medications. Other medications for learning disabilities can also offset a female’s body and hormone levels. Menstrual discomfort/ pain can range so high that our teenagers are put on opioid’s/ pain medication. All of this can be difficult to cope with. How can we help our girls? Massage therapy is known to be one of the best ways by which cramps can be kept under control or stopped completely. Girls can also benefit from learning self-massage techniques to use when experiencing menstrual cramps on a day-to-day basis.