We all heard it, and we all thought about it, but what good will that clear stuff really do for us after a massage? “Drink lots of water after each session, it will help flush out all those toxins.” The famous words given to just about everyone who receives a massage! Massage is soft tissue manipulation that provides an increase of blood flow to our body. Those “feel good spots”, and an “ahh” moment happens when we increase the blood flow to a specific area that has been blocked. The blocked area is usually from muscle tightness, which comes from stress, physical activity, emotion distress or injury. We need a large amount of water after muscle manipulation occurs because these ‘spots’ are potent and toxic to our body and need the assistance of water to be flushed out.

                       

                              Toxins enter our muscles through many different ways.

                                                    Physical and emotional stress

                                                          Drinking and smoking

                                                                    A poor diet

                                                                      Your job

                                                                        Coffee

                                                            Pills and Medications

 

        When we put medication in our body to help ease the pain or for any kind of headache or migraine symptom relief, pills leave excess toxins behind. These toxins then are settled into our muscles causing muscle tightness and spasms. It is also not uncommon to have muscles tighten or go into spasm due to extreme muscle dehydration caused from lack of sufficient water intake.

Physical activity, stress and injuries create the muscle tissues to build-up toxins in specific areas of the body. Lactic acids, stress hormones, and dehydration are all causes of knots.

 

Water is seen as the “liquid drano” for our bodies to flush out lactic acid and metabolic wastes that cause these knots. When a particular working muscle is dehydrated, it searches for a water source and most often clings to other muscle tissue for this water source.

 

                                     How much water do I need on a daily basis?

“A simple rule is to take your weight in pounds, divide in half, and drink that number of ounces of water. So for a person how weighs 150lbs, you should be drinking 75 ounces of water. Do not over-drink, thinking that you can overcome months or years of under-drinking by drinking a lot in a few days. Drink your amount (as calculated above) daily & your body will fully re-hydrate over a long period of time.