Practising for just over a year, Julie Britton, registered massage therapist at Scent From Heaven, says that she first took an interest in massage therapy because she was curious about new healthcare methods.

“I’d always had an interest in anatomy, the human body and how it all works. I also wanted to find a way to help people, so I went towards massage therapy,” said Britton.

Massage therapy is the manipulation of soft tissue to increase physical movement, according to Britton. She says it is most often used for manipulating muscles, tendons, ligaments and joints to assist with pain relief and often mobility.

“I used to clench my teeth which gave me jaw pain. I saw a massage therapist who worked the muscles all around my neck, outside and inside of my jaw. My headaches from the jaw pain went away but not until I learned how to stop clenching my teeth so it wouldn’t keep happening,” said Britton.

Britton says what often happens when a person visits the doctor for a specific type of pain is that the root cause isn’t always discovered and is left untreated.

“If you’re having hip pain you may be able to trace it back down to starting at your foot and your foot is the root cause. The entire body is connected and people don’t always connect why the problem may be happening with where the pain is,” said Britton.

Britton went on to explain that when the trigger for the specific problem is removed, the problem should no longer occur.

Instead of taking Advil or a similar painkiller for constant headaches, for example, Britton says to first try and figure out where the problem is rooted.

“It could be that you’re using the wrong pillow at night or have bad posture that needs to be corrected. Either way, when a new patient comes in we first look at their health history and then conduct a postural analysis,” said Britton.

Britton explained that one of the most common issues she’s seen is bad posture, which often leads to shoulder and neck pain and lower back pain.

“It’s often because of poor footware and generally not correcting posture. First, we’d look at their feet to see if they need orthotics and teach them how to have better posture,” said Britton.

Two easy ways that Britton suggests is to put a rolled up towel behind the lower back when sitting to help straighten and as often as possible, walk with your thumbs facing outwards and arms straight as a reminder to walk with shoulders back, rather than slouched.

Although each person and their bodies react differently to massage therapy, Britton says that the goal of massage therapy is to get a patient to the discharge phase, which is the point that they do not need to return for treatments.

“Sometimes people will come back periodically for maintenance. We’re all human, many of us sit at a desk for eight hours a day or have additional stress that in turns makes muscles tense and leads to problems. Others, however, may always have a problem that can’t be fixed but can be helped,” said Britton.