Seasonal Allergies: How Massage Can Help Alleviate Symptoms

Summer is the season of bounty, especially when it comes to blooming plant life. But as lovely as the flora can be, it can also open the door to allergy symptoms: sniffly noses, watery eyes, and aching heads. Typical allergy remedies focus on taking medicine or changing when you leave the house. But most people don’t realize massage can also offer relief. Here’s how massage can help alleviate seasonal allergy symptoms.

Improve Breathing

Breathing is one of the first things that seasonal allergies attack. Our lungs become inflamed, leading to wheezing and shortness of breath, and our sinuses become congested. But massage can open up our breathing by reducing tension in the muscles we use to take a breath, such as the neck and back. Some people also believe that massaging the sinuses can improve inflammation and reduce congestion.

Loosen Tightened Muscles

A postnasal drip cough can be irritating for people with allergies. It distracts from work, keeps us up at night, and disrupts our surroundings. Worse, a lingering cough takes its toll on abdominal muscles after a while, leading to soreness. Massage can soothe these muscles by releasing built-up tension. This is especially true if you use heat-based massages such as a hot stone massage or a heated massage chair.

Reduce Headaches

For migraine-sufferers, seasonal allergy season is especially difficult. Compounding symptoms are often enough to trigger migraines. Fortunately, the muscle-relaxing benefits of massage we already mentioned can also relieve headaches. Additionally, massage improves circulation throughout the body, which is especially significant for migraine headaches.

Decrease Stress

When we’re exposed to an allergen, our immune systems produce histamine, which fights off the allergen—and increases our symptoms in the process. But allergens aren’t the only reason the body produces histamines. When we’re stressed, our bodies also produce more histamines, leading to worsened symptoms when combined with our regular allergies. Massage reduces stress, thus reducing histamine levels.

Not convinced massage can reduce your seasonal allergy symptoms? All you have to do is sink into one of our Westinghouse massage chairs. You’ll have an experience that’s sure to put you into a state of total relaxation and relieve your symptoms, too.