The benefit for which massage and bodywork is most widely known is relaxation. Massage therapists tend to have hypertonic hand, arm, neck and shoulder muscles, often as a result of poor posture or body mechanics, or emotional tension. In this state, they do not get the rest they need to recover and heal so that injury can be avoided. Muscular tension also decreases circulation, impeding healing and increasing your injury risk. By lengthening your muscle tissue, massage helps your muscles return to a relaxed state with improved circulation.
Massage also has a calming effect on the sympathetic nervous system.
The physical and emotional relaxation that results will help prevent tension from creeping back into your muscles as you massage. Trigger-point work is a particularly effective massage technique for many of the pain symptoms experienced by massage therapists. Trigger points are spots of hard, ropy tissue that are sore when touched. It is believed they are caused by emotional stress, injury due to overuse or trauma. If you carry tension in your shoulders, for example, the constant tension in those muscles may cause small areas of injury that result in scar tissue adhesions and trigger points.