The importance of massage therapy for pain and anxiety

I started here a year ago because I was inspired by people who were helping my mother and one of my oldest friends. I saw the Marie Curie Nurses; it was really inspiring, and I felt that it would give me some purpose as well.

I started with Swedish massage then studied oncology massage. This is working with my hands on the body manipulating joints and muscles to relieve pain, reduce anxiety, bring somebody’s nervous system back into regulation.

Even though I might’ve seen someone’s notes I will speak with them because their medical notes might say what their pain is like and what medications they’re on, but it doesn’t tell me their story.

Sometimes it’s not obvious what’s going on, so when someone’s on the table you can still kind of feel the story through where the lines of tension are. For instance, a patient had a frozen shoulder amongst other things and was really struggling to get dressed. But even in that, you can feel how lines of tension run right down their arm and really the most pain relief came from massaging hand and thumb. And that really provided pain relief and a bit more freedom of movement up in the shoulder.

Strangely, a lot of people don’t get any touch even when they’re in pain, or they get very little touch. There was one man where putting a hand where he had so much pain, just holding that area provided huge amounts of relief. He said, ‘I haven’t felt that relief for months.’ Just literally putting your hands on and holding it firmly, inviting the muscle to relax. It’s amazing. Anybody can do this. It’s not magic, it’s just care.

There was a man who came in with his son who was in a lot of pain but really holding it together. As soon as his son left the room, there were little things he just whispered to me; ‘I’m really suffering, help me. I’m in pain. Am I doing okay?’ It was quite hard. But also the opportunity to provide him some reassurance was really good. A real privilege.

Anxiety is a bodily sensation. Your body and muscles tighten; breath gets short. It can be chronic and last for a long time, or it can be just for a short period. Massage can really help to get you back into focusing on the sensation of your body, allowing it to relax and getting you to breathe. And doing that also helps your mind relax, so although your mind can get all wound up and your body starts to tense, it can work the other way around as well; relax your body and your mind starts to relax as well.

There have been some cancelled appointments; also I think there are people, both men and women, who might struggle when they realise it’s a man doing the massage. There’s this idea that they’ll have a female therapist. Typically, that’s not a problem once people step in because there’s a significant amount of hands-on pain relief. People want to come back, so that’s reaffirming. With some people I can follow their story from outpatients to inpatients, and that’s really nice, especially if there’s been some emotional connection.

After I started working here, a good friend of mine was diagnosed with cancer and died in the ward. She was young, in her 40s. Seeing her journey through diagnosis and rapid decline to death was, again, a real privilege. I went through a lot of grief and even that grief turned out to be a real healing tool for me. I’ve really bottomed out on grief. I can feel really stable with grief and stand with somebody else who’s grieving, so that’s a great thing as well.

I came here looking for more purpose, and I found it by the bucketload.