National Massage Therapy Awareness Week
Save the Date – October 25-31, 2009

Evanston, IL – From October 25 to 31, 2009, the American Massage Therapy Association® (AMTA®) will celebrate the massage therapy profession during National Massage Therapy Awareness Week®, now in its 13th year.  This week is designed to raise public awareness of the benefits of therapeutic massage and encourage Americans to seek massage therapy for stress relief, pain management and general health. 

AMTA members and chapters celebrate NMTAW in many unique ways, such as through public massage demonstrations, educational sessions on the benefits of massage, and providing massage therapy for charitable events.  This year, the power of touch will be demonstrated for several months before and after NMTAW in collaboration with the Komen for the Cure® walk to support the cure for cancer.  And, many AMTA members will celebrate the week by collaborating with the World Skin Project to better educate their massage clients about changes in their skin that should be seen by a physician.


“Our goal for this week is to provide an avenue for massage therapists to successfully spotlight the profession, their business and the association,” says AMTA President, Judy Stahl.  “I’m thrilled to share this event on a national level, and I’m looking forward to learning how our members celebrate as well.”



This article is from Wikipedia. A short segment about what massage is and what it encompasses.


Many types of practices are associated with massage and include bodywork, manual therapy, energy medicine, and breathwork. Other names for massage and related practices include hands-on work, body/somatic therapy, and somatic movement education. Body-mind integration techniques stress self-awareness and movement over physical manipulations by a practitioner. Therapies related to movement awareness/education are closer to Dance and movement therapies. Massage can also have connections with the New Age movement and alternative medicine as well as being used by mainstream medical practitioners.

[edit] Beneficial effects Le massage: scène au Hammam by Edouard Debat-Ponsan (1883)

Peer-reviewed medical research has shown that the benefits of massage include pain relief, reduced trait anxiety and depression, and temporarily reduced blood pressure,
heart rate, and state anxiety.[26]