Putting Cholesterol in its Proper Place
Massage therapy has many benefits. We commonly hear about lowering blood pressure, relieving back pain, getting rid of headaches, and managing stress. But there is one benefit we don’t hear much about.

Massage can lower your cholesterol.

Doctors routinely tell their patients to get regular exercise and watch what they eat in order to lower their cholesterol. Over the last ten years at my job as a nationally certified massage therapist, I have heard this advice repeated over and over as my new clients’ concerns grow. They have started exercise programs. They are watching what they are eating. But their cholesterol numbers are on the rise.

What else can be done? They don’t want to jump on the bandwagon for cholesterol-reducing statin drugs (Lipitor®, Mevacor®, etc.) and they are so stressed out about it that they seek out a massage. Good move.

I take great joy in telling my new clients that massage is one of the most effective weapons for reducing cholesterol. This invariably results in a question. How in the world can massage therapy affect cholesterol?

To get at the answer here, let’s take a little detour. The organs of our bodies—heart, stomach, intestines—are regulated by a part of our nervous systems called the autonomic nervous system. The autonomic nervous system controls many organs and muscles within the body. In most situations, we’re unaware of these workings because the systems function in an involuntary, reflexive way. For example, we don’t notice when blood vessels change size or when our hearts beat faster.

But the autonomic nervous system serves us well in another, very different type of situation. It takes over in times of stress, automatically causing our reactive behavior. In true emergencies this results in fighting or fleeing.

To take an example, imagine yourself taking a walk in the park. It’s a nice, sunny day and you’ve just finished a terrific lunch. Suddenly, a bear jumps in front of you. Do you stay and fight? Or do you run away? These are the automatic fight or flight responses. Confronted by that bear, your autonomic nervous system takes over—your blood pressure increases, your heart beats faster, your digestion slows down diverting blood to muscles.

Now imagine yourself taking a walk in the park after that same lunch. It’s a very nice day. You spy an inviting bench and sit down to rest a bit in the warm sunshine. You are completely relaxed. This time your autonomic nervous system works to conserve energy—your blood pressure decreases, your heart beats more slowly, and your digestive process can truly do its work.

What does all this have to do with cholesterol?

When you are under stress, your internal body chemistry changes. More cholesterol is released into your system. Without getting into all the intricacies of the body’s complex defenses, suffice it to say that cholesterol is a part of the fight or flight mechanism.

Granted, we don’t normally run into bears in the park, but there are other situations that the body sees in the same way. We run into people who cut us off on the road. We receive credit card bills that are much higher than we expected. And then there are the daily to-do lists that remain undone at 5 o’clock.

Our poor autonomic nervous systems are continually being activated due to our everyday stresses. This type of situation can overwork your adrenal glands, along with other body parts, and your system is flooded with cholesterol.

Massage can actually stimulate our autonomic nervous systems. It helps to quiet our bodies, and it decreases our chances of stress-related problems. This explains why massage can help digestion and blood pressure and just about any other stress-related matter. And it’s why massage can help to lower those cholesterol numbers.

Lipitor® is a trademark of Pfizer. Mevacor® is a trademark of Merck.
By Jane Christ, reprint from b.savvy magazine February/March 2004

Top