Soft tissue therapy eases stress and tension promoting total relaxation.

Soft tissue therapy involves:

• the assessment, treatment and management of injury, pain and dysfunction – both chronic and acute.
• the use of a broad range of massage, stretching and other hands-on techniques to manipulate the soft tissues of the body
• treatment of muscles, fascia/connective tissue, ligaments, nerves, joint capsules, lymphatic vessels.
• it will usually involve one or more of the following in addition to the hands-on techniques: active movement, awareness practice, breathing practices, homecare recommendations, exercise prescription, taping, myofascial dry needling, recommendation of postural/movement devices, self-treatment and self-relaxation techniques, referral to another more appropriate modality of treatment.

Soft Tissue Therapy is NOT a passive therapy. There is ALWAYS an active participation from the client on some level – even if relaxation is the primary aim and treatment indicated, and they spend the majority of the time on the table receiving relaxation massage, information, adaptation, and learning is continually being disseminated consciously and subconsciously; always at the cellular and more subtle levels if not consciously or subjectively observable on the gross physical level. This is why most people who get a relaxation massage can feel so much better when they leave than when they arrived.

Primary Benefits of STT – at the most fundamental level an expected and welcome touch can help reduce the global effects of an overactive sympathetic nervous system (SNS, aka The Stress/Busy/Active Response, where “fight, flight or freeze” can happen to keep up vital and alive), and increase the activity of the parasympathetic nervous system (PNS, aka. The relaxation response where resting, digesting and repairing can happen more effectively) in ways that other “non-contact” therapies can’t. There is another level of letting go (of guard, apprehension, tension, fear etc) that has to happen to allow someone in on the physical level at the making of a massage appointment that can make facilitation of change easier and less invasive.