Category: News

Can these stress apps transform your life for the better?

When your thoughts feel like a tornado, it’s hard to do stuff like plan healthy meals, or schedule gym time.

Never mind falling asleep at a decent hour the night before so you have the energy to actually DO these things.

Seems like an unlikely hero—but your phone might help.

Specifically, via stress management apps.

Stress management apps promise to help you manage your thoughts, regulate your emotions, and ease tension and restlessness from your body.

And in turn, better recovery from stress “fills up your tank,” making it easier for you to eat mindfully, find time to exercise, and feel like you have the capacity to take on new challenges.

In the following article, we’ll discuss how apps for stress management and anxiety might help you do that. You’ll discover:

What stress apps are, and how they work
Who’s most likely to benefit from these apps
Which stress management apps are the best

If you want to better manage your thoughts, feelings, and behaviors so you can create or sustain your health and fitness habits, keep reading.

First, what are stress management apps?

Stress management apps are programs on your phone that offer tools like guided meditation, guided breathwork, and mood tracking. These tools aim to reduce anxiety and stress, and improve mindfulness and wellbeing.

The cool thing is, apps for anxiety and stress can help you find relief in the moment, but also ongoing.

That’s because stress management is a skill.

So, the more you practice regulating your emotions—like calming yourself down with controlled breathing after a heated conversation with your boss—the more it begins to feel natural, and even automatic.

Because your phone is nearly always with you, stress apps can help you practice the skill of stress management wherever and whenever you need it.

Okay, but do apps for anxiety actually work?

The short answer: Yes. (For most people.)

A 2020 study in the International Journal of Technology Assessment in Health Care reported that apps using behavior-change strategies (such as CBT), significantly helped with depression, anxiety, and stress.1

And, a 2021 meta-analysis in the Journal of Affective Disorders found that mindfulness apps in particular show promise in helping reduce perceived stress, anxiety, depression, and improve psychological well-being.2

However, there’s nothing special about using these tools through your phone.

Apps just help make these therapies more convenient, accessible, and user-friendly. (Often, they’re more affordable than traditional therapy, too.)

Marla Deibler, PsyD, clinical psychologist and founder of The Center for Emotional Health of Greater Philadelphia, suggests that while apps can be part of your mental health toolkit, effective stress management should include a wide range of strategies.

Other strategies might include connecting to loved ones, getting out in nature, or talking to a mental health professional, such as a therapist, stress coach, or social worker.

Precision Nutrition Master Health Coach Kate Solovieva, MA, who holds her masters in Social and Personality Psychology, points out that for some, their phone is a source of stress. For these people, non-digital strategies, like the ones mentioned above, might be more effective.

Techniques that help with stress management

Stress and anxiety apps tend to focus on one or several of the most effective techniques for stress management and anxiety relief.

Here’s an overview of these approaches:

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)

CBT is one of the most effective and well-researched treatments for many mood issues, including anxiety and depression—but also plain old daily stress.3

“We all have moments where we unintentionally increase or maintain our own stress by thinking unhelpful thoughts. These thoughts are often unrealistic, inaccurate, or, to some extent, unreasonable,” Dr. Deibler says.

CBT helps you identify and rewrite these patterns of thinking, so you can feel better, and change your behavior in positive ways.

For example, you might have a thought like, “I don’t have time to work out today, but if I skip, all my progress will be lost.”

Under normal circumstances, this thought may cause you to feel defeated, and may even tempt you to give up your training goals altogether.

Using CBT, you learn to challenge this thought, realizing that it’s overly catastrophic. (Skipping one workout will not somehow turn all your hard-earned muscle to mush.)

While CBT is most effective when done with a clinician, most people can learn basic skills to help themselves have more awareness of their thought errors, and learn to respond to these thoughts more productively.

Mindfulness and acceptance

Research shows mindfulness can be highly effective in helping reduce the physiological stress response in people with generalized anxiety disorder.4

Mindfulness can help you observe uncomfortable emotions with healthy detachment—kind of like watching a wave in the ocean swell, and then ride out.

Anxiety may feel bad, but it isn’t inherently harmful—and it does pass, says Dr. Deibler. Learning to observe your experiences—even the unwanted ones—without judgment or resistance, can help you feel less overwhelmed, and move on faster.

Meditation

Mindfulness meditation is the style of meditation most commonly found on stress apps.

This type of meditation usually involves sitting somewhere with your eyes closed, and simply observing your thoughts and feelings—your bodily sensations, sounds in your environment, or the chatter in your brain.

Whatever you notice, the idea is to try not to control it, judge it, or get overly identified with or emotionally wrapped up in it. (Yes, this is hard!)

This practice can help you to become more present—instead of overanalyzing the past or projecting into the future—as well as detach from stressful thoughts.

Not surprisingly, research shows that this type of meditation is effective at reducing anxiety.5 6

Breathwork

Taking deep, slow breaths helps lower your heart rate and blood pressure. This has a calming effect on your body, which can in turn cue your brain to calm down too, explains California-based Nathan Brandon, Psy.D., who specializes in online therapy.

Studies show breathwork—especially when the exhale is even with or longer than the inhale—is an effective intervention for reducing stress, increasing mindfulness, and reducing anxiety.7

(There are some great apps that can help you use your breath as a tool for stress management, but if you want a quick primer, we have a free guide too.)

Relaxation techniques

There are many activities that relax the body and mind—and different apps that cater to each. A few popular techniques:

Yoga (whether it’s fast-paced and sweaty, or slow and stretching-focused)
Tai Chi (an ancient self-defense technique that’s practiced as a gentle flow of standing postures)
Progressive muscle relaxation (a practice of tensing different muscle groups one-by-one, then releasing them)

“These activities work by focusing your attention on something other than your stressors and by helping your physical body to relax,” says Dr. Brandon.

Identifying triggers

“Figuring out the things that trigger your stress and learning how to deal with them in a healthy way can make a big difference in your overall stress levels,” Dr. Brandon says.

Both he and Coach Solovieva suggest identifying what causes your anxiety to flare up. Triggers can include people, places, or things—for example, alcohol, caffeine, too many hours at the office, poor sleep, or even certain relationships.

Once you identify the things that make your mood or behaviors go south, you have more control over them: you can figure out how to minimize your exposure to triggers, or just alter your perspective on them

Apps that track your mood or habits can illustrate these patterns more clearly.

What are the best stress management apps?

According to all three of our experts—and established research1—the most effective apps for anxiety or stress are ones that are based on evidence-based techniques, like those above.

However, if your stress or mood issues are persistent and/or severe, talk to your doctor or book an appointment with a licensed mental health professional.

With that in mind, here are seven of our top choices:

Headspace

Free 7-day trial, then $13/mo; iOS and Android

All of our experts recommended the leading meditation app, and it’s one of the few wellness and stress management apps with significant clinical research to support it.8

Headspace takes the practice of mindfulness meditation and makes it easy-peasy for beginners.

First, you complete a 10-day introductory course that holds your hand through how to meditate with videos and informative animations.

Then, you can access a huge library of guided meditations and exercises, with experts ranging from Buddhist monks to Olympic trainers.

The app leverages all sorts of meditation techniques, including visualizations, resting awareness, body scanning, and compassion, so it’s a great way to explore niches that might work well for you.

Waking Up

Free 7-day trial, then $14.99/mo; iOS and Android

Created by neuroscientist Sam Harris, Waking Up teaches you not only the basics of how to meditate, but also includes resources like mini-courses and podcast-style interviews on spiritual theories, philosophy, and psychology.

With the Waking Up app, you can do the daily 10-minute guided meditation, but you can also do shorter or longer specialized meditations, or listen to thought-provoking conversations on Stoicism, spiritual philosophy, sleep improvement, and even productivity—all from world-renowned teachers and scholars.

Liberate

Free 7-day trial, then $10/mo; iOS and Android

This meditation app is designed to be a helpful and safe space specifically for the Black community.

It features over 260 meditations plus additional talks from BIPOC teachers, covering general mindfulness as well as topics specific to microaggressions, internalized racism, ancestral healing, forgiveness, and more.

The meditations range from 5 to 25 minutes.

InsightTimer

Free; iOS and Android

InsightTimer gives you access to more than 90,000 meditations for free, including ambient sounds to help calm your mind and guided sessions from meditation teachers, psychologists, and celebrities like Russel Brand, Gisele Bündchen, and Elizabeth Gilbert.

Its thorough library can feel a bit overwhelming for beginners, but it categorizes its meditations, so you can easily find something to help you calm anxiety in the moment, focus on self-love or compassion, or fall asleep faster.

It also offers all styles of meditation, including Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) therapy, and breathing meditations.

Breathe+

Free for basic features; iOS and Android

Controlling your breath helps regulate your central nervous system, which is the on/off switch for anxiety. But simply sitting still and breathing can be surprisingly difficult.

Breathe+ uses a simple design to help you zero in on controlling your breath. You just input how long you want to practice breathwork for and how many counts you want for your inhale, hold, exhale, and hold. Hit start, and the app screen shows calming waves to mimic the rise, fall, and pauses of your breath.

We love the accessibility and simplicity of this visual-oriented app for in-the-moment calming, but if you prefer talk-guided breathwork, check out Othership or Breathwrk.

Tangerine

Free; iOS and Android

This habit- and mood-tracking app helps you stay accountable for the practices you know keep your anxiety levels down.

Displayed like a calendar, Tangerine allows you to input any habit, along with what time of day and how many times per week you like to complete it.

Each day, you check off the habits you completed, rate your mood on a simple smiley face scale, and add a few journal notes about what made your day good or bad.

It’s helpful on its own for accountability with healthy habits, but for an extra $5 per month, you can access insights and stats to see how your routine affected your mood, and to see trends.

Sanvello

$9/mo, iOS and Android

Sanvello combines many of the aforementioned science-backed therapies into one app. It:

Tracks your mood, exercise, and sleep every day
Offers expert-designed guided journeys based on things like mindfulness and CBT
Has a library of tools to help with specific, anxiety-inducing situations like public speaking or morning dread

Then, it offers a report to show correlations between your daily mood ratings and the activities you did—or didn’t—do.

Build yourself up, bit by bit.

While doing five minutes of box breathing will definitely help calm you down in the moment, substantial changes to your baseline levels of stress will only happen when you practice these tools regularly (likely daily).

Additionally, because apps are designed to be universally helpful—a kind of “one size fits all” approach—they work best for minor stress and anxiety.

However, many people benefit from deeper and more individualized support—particularly from another human. That’s why we created PN Level 1 Sleep, Stress Management, and Recovery Certification. It gives you the tools, know-how, and skills needed to help yourself (and others) cope better with life’s many stressors, improve mental and emotional well-being, and gain the capacity to make meaningful health and fitness changes

But apps are a great, accessible place to start.

Even if you only have one minute a day, build in your stress management reps, just like you might build in reps at the squat rack.

Every time you practice being mindful, regulating your breathing, or moving your body in a way that relieves tension, you get stronger and more skilled at that practice.

Over time, you become more effective at managing stress. One day, you might even call yourself a mental health athlete.

References

Click here to view the information sources referenced in this article.

If you’re a health and fitness pro…

Learning how to help clients manage stress and optimize sleep can massively change your clients’ results.

They’ll get “unstuck” and finally move forward—whether they want to eat better, move more, lose weight, or reclaim their health.

Plus, it’ll give you the confidence and credibility as a specialized coach who can solve the biggest problems blocking any clients’ progress.

The brand-new PN Level 1 Sleep, Stress Management, and Recovery Coaching Certification will show you how.

The post Can these stress apps transform your life for the better? appeared first on Precision Nutrition.

What is a wellness coach? (And how can you make wellness coaching your career?)

You know what you should do for good health.

Get enough quality sleep most nights.

Cook nutritious, satisfying meals at home, most evenings.

Make time for sweating, meditating, time in nature—whatever helps you feel recharged and strong.

It’s just that DOING these things (consistently) isn’t so easy.

Just like your dog stubbornly lying in front of every doorway, life trips you up, derails your plans, scrambles your focus.

If you find yourself continually face-planting when attempting to start or sustain healthy habits, it might just be that you need more support.

Someone to give you strategies for overcoming obstacles, a little extra guidance, and maybe some accountability.

A wellness coach might give you the progress-boost you need.

Except… maybe you’ve never heard of wellness coaching.

(Or maybe you have, but it’s always sounded a little “woo-woo” to you. Get off me, crystals!)

In this article, we’ll explain what a wellness coach is, who might benefit from working with one, and how wellness coaching differs from nutrition coaching.

Lastly, we’ll tell you what accreditation to look for—whether you’re looking to work with a wellness coach, or looking to BE one.

What is a wellness coach, anyway?

Before we get to that, let’s get clear on the term “wellness.”

When you think of your health, you might consider your blood pressure, cholesterol levels, and other physical markers that your primary care doc would examine at a regular check up. You might also think of the quality of your sleep, diet, or exercise.

While “wellness” includes physical health, it’s more of a holistic concept that also captures mental, emotional, and spiritual / existential well-being.

(At PN, we refer to this as “Deep health.” Learn more here.)

A wellness coach (also sometimes called a “health and wellness” coach) helps people improve whatever aspect of well-being they’d like to focus on.

As you can imagine, that’s a pretty broad category.

To list a few examples, a wellness coach may help clients…

Change their body composition
Boost energy levels
Improve sleep
Move better and improve posture
Create healthy boundaries between work and home life
Reduce stress
Establish a mindfulness practice
Improve diet quality or even just a person’s relationship with food

What do wellness coaches do?

Wellness coaches come from all sorts of backgrounds: fitness, nutrition, mental health, education, and more.

Some work on healthcare teams alongside physicians, others work in gym settings or in community centers.

(And of course, these days, wellness coaches may work in-person with people in their city or town, or online with people halfway across the world.)

Many wellness coaches narrow their area of expertise, working with specific populations like young moms looking to carve out “me time”; college athletes wanting to improve their recovery routines; or seniors looking to boost their cardiovascular fitness.

Wellness coaches encourage clients to take charge of their own health.

Ideally, what connects wellness coaches is that they’ve received training in client-centered health education, behavior change science, and motivational strategies.

This means they know it’s not enough to just tell someone what to do. (Most people have enough knowledge; it’s the action part they struggle with.)

It also means they believe that YOU’RE the expert of your own life.

So, YOU get to decide—based on your own experiences, self-knowledge, personal values, and priorities—what habits you want to improve.

Because wellness coaches tend to value a client’s autonomy, they’re not going to “prescribe” a rigid meal plan or exercise routine—unless they have other qualifications to do so, and that’s what you ask for.

(To find out why meal plans tend to fail anyway, read: Why meal plans usually suck)

Is a wellness coach really worth the investment?

There’s so much information already available: From your couch, you can Google “best diet to lose weight” or “strategies to cope with stress,” and come up with lots of resources—for free!

However, combing through all that info can be overwhelming.

Also: As we’ve already mentioned, having knowledge doesn’t always translate to making changes.

Plus, the info you find—as good as some of it is—won’t necessarily apply to your life and the unique challenges you face.

Here’s an example:

Let’s say you’re trying to gain muscle. You’ll learn from a quick Google search that you’ll need to do resistance training, maybe increase your protein and overall calorie consumption, plus build in recovery time between workouts so your muscles can repair themselves.

All of that’s helpful to know, but it’s no game plan.

A wellness coach, on the other hand, would consider your goal and then help support you to:

Develop life skills, like managing your time so you can fit in those extra sessions at the gym, and maybe extra sleep at night (because recovery!)
Create supportive habits, systems, and behaviors, like like learning how to build in food prep routines, so those high-protein meals are ready when you’re hungry
Explore the deeper meaning behind your goals, ensuring your new habits actually feel good and align with your personal values, which can help you sustain progress long term

…And many other things.

In short, if you have a goal, a wellness coach can help you create a map to get there. (Plus, they’ll be around to help you re-orient yourself should you ever go off-course.)

So, although there’s lots of (great) free advice out there, it’s not really providing value if you’re not using it. On the other hand, when you find someone who can actually help you change your day-to-day life for the better, it’s priceless.

The difference between a wellness coach and a nutrition coach

Here’s where it can get confusing:

Many health and wellness coaches also coach nutrition.

And, many nutrition coaches use a holistic framework when helping clients address their nutrition challenges.

(For example, in our L1 and L2 certifications, we have a strong focus on nutrition science, but we also teach our coaches tools they can use to improve their clients’ mental, emotional, social, and other aspects of health.)

But if we were to draw a line somewhere:

A nutrition coach generally focuses on food and diet quality to support their client’s overall health, body composition, and/or performance goals.

A wellness coach may do the above—depending on the type of education they’ve received—but they’ll also tend to work more globally by looking at other factors that influence their client’s well-being. (Think: exercise, sleep, social connections, work, and recreation.)

And just so you know, even though nutrition coaches and wellness coaches can have excellent knowledge around food and diet, neither of them are qualified to:

Practice medical nutrition therapy (MNT), a practice that uses nutrition, and sometimes targeted supplements, to treat disease
Develop and provide meal plans for medical conditions

Legally, only registered dieticians (RDs) can offer those services to others.

How to become a wellness coach

With better training and more awareness, the wellness coaching industry is becoming more recognized—and legitimized.

However, the field is still largely unregulated.

Nowadays—for better or worse—anybody can slap the “wellness coach”  title to their name without bumping into any legal issues.

That means, if you wanted to, you could decide to call yourself a wellness coach right now—without receiving any kind of training. 

You could set up a wellness coaching business and even charge clients for your services.

Yikes.

The good news:

There are ways to become an accredited wellness coach.

Plus, there are regulatory boards—like the National Board for Health and Wellness Coaching (NBHWC)—that validate quality programs so you know you’re actually getting a good education.

Currently, there are over 100 approved wellness coaching programs and certifications approved by the NBHWC.

Before you go clicking on the first program you find, though, understand that each program is unique.

They all vary in:

Cost: The range is huge, with some programs costing around $1,200 USD, and others costing $25,000 USD.
Area of specialization: Programs can focus on anything from trauma prevention and recovery, women’s health, healthy aging, or have a more generalized approach.
Educational and/or professional requirements: Some programs require a bachelor’s degree, for example.
Program length: Again the range is wide; some programs can be completed in three months, while others take up to four years.

If you graduate from one of these approved programs, you qualify to apply for the National Board Certification Examination, offered in partnership with the National Board of Medical Examiners (NBME).

If you pass this exam, you earn a National Board Certified Health and Wellness Coach (NBC-HWC) credential—which is a fairly respected title in the field.

Benefits of having a wellness coach certification

As mentioned earlier, there are a lot of different people on the internet calling themselves a “health and wellness coach,” so sometimes it’s difficult to figure out who’s legit.

Having a wellness coach certification from a program that has the NBC-HWC seal of approval—which graduates of Precision Nutrition’s Level 2 Master Health Coaching Certification are eligible to get—can set you apart.

Regardless, a certification can foster more trust among potential clients, and give you the confidence that you’ve learned the skills necessary to work with clients and the real-life struggles they face every day.

In other words, a certification supports you as a coach—giving you more knowledge, resources, credibility, and confidence—so you can better support your clients.

In our elite mentorship program, you’ll learn the secrets of behavior change psychology—and join the world’s top 1% of coaches.

“I skyrocketed my coaching skills and confidence…My impostor syndrome is gone!”– Katya Mohsen, PN Certified Master Health Coach

If you’re ready to level up your coaching skills and feel confident you can guide any client to a lasting health transformation, we’ve got some big news for you:

On April 4th, 2023, we’re opening registration for the next cohort of the PN Master Health Coaching Certification, the industry’s most respected practice-based mentorship.

“You cannot be a health or fitness coach without having the tools and techniques that this program brings. It’s a whole different level.”– Katya Mohsen, Lisa Bernier, PN Certified Master Health Coach

Inside the Master Health Coaching Certification, you’ll learn a skill set and be able to earn a credential that will distinguish you as an elite coach:

The ability to use behavior change psychology to help any client achieve sustainable, meaningful change. And the credential of being a Board Certified Health and Wellness Coach.

“This program does an absolutely phenomenal job of addressing how to affect behavior change…something that’s sorely missing in most people’s practices.”– Jeb Stuart Johnson, Founder of Food On The Mind, PN Certified Master Health Coach

It’s the only program in the world where you’ll learn the secrets of behavior change psychology through live mentorship.

Because, while knowing the science of nutrition and fitness is important, it’s not enough. In order to actually create change, you need a deep understanding of behavior change psychology.

We’ve applied this understanding with our coaching programs to help over 100,000 clients achieve lasting health transformations—something nobody else can say.

And now, we’re ready to share our hard-earned wisdom with you.

“This program taught me how to be a better coach and retain clients longer. Before, I had clients staying for a month. Now, it’s six, nine months, even a year.”– Jeff Grogan, PN Certified Master Health Coach

Through real-world coaching scenarios, hands-on assignments, and mentoring sessions with PN’s industry-leading Master Health Coaches, you’ll learn how to prioritize a client’s challenges, help them remove obstacles holding them back, and how to create unique, actionable coaching plans for every client, addressing their:

Sleep
Stress management
Mental health
Emotional wellbeing
Recovery
Diet
Exercise

This mentorship program is where the world’s best coaches come to take the next steps in their careers.

At the end of your 20-week program, you’ll be a Master Health Coach—confident in your ability to guide any client towards a meaningful, lasting health transformation.

“I now have more knowledge, more confidence and more skill. My clients stay longer and experience better results.”– Jonny Landels, Founder of Next Step Nutrition, PN Certified Master Health Coach

After joining, you’ll:

Help any client achieve sustainable, meaningful change by leveraging behavior-change psychology.
Eliminate impostor syndrome and feel more confident in your skills than ever before by integrating proven methods used by the world’s top health and well-being coaches into your coaching practice.
Become an authority in the health and well-being space. As you learn from PN’s industry-leading coaches and network with some of the sharpest minds in the industry, you’ll build the confidence to share your expertise with anyone, anytime.
Make more money and achieve financial freedom. Whether you decide to take on the full-time role of “health coach”, or you want to expand on your current work as a health and well-being professional, health coaching is a great way to help more people.

Early Bird registration for our next PN Master Health Coaching Certification kicks off on April 4th, 2023.

If you’re interested, or just want more information, you should strongly consider signing up for the free waitlist below.

After joining the free Waitlist, you’ll save up to 44%, get exclusive perks, and early access.

Pay less than everyone else. We’re offering a discount of up to 44% off the general price when you sign up for the waitlist
Sign up 10 days before the general public. We only open the PN Master Health Coaching Certification a few times per year. Due to high demand, we expect it to sell out fast. But when you sign up for the waitlist, we’ll give you the opportunity to register 10 days before anyone else.
Get access to an exclusive bonus seminar with PN Co-founder Dr. John Berardi and PN CEO Timothy Jones: “Coaching After the Pandemic: How Health and Fitness Coaches Can Navigate the Industry in 2023 and Beyond.”

The post What is a wellness coach? (And how can you make wellness coaching your career?) appeared first on Precision Nutrition.

Grow Your Practice by Using Massage Tools

I did not set out to be known as the massage-tool guy. Achy hands pushed me to make changes in the massage room, and eventually, massage tools replaced my fingers and thumbs for a majority of pressing and gliding work. When that happened, my massage practice took off.

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Five National Spa Brands Join Forces to Form the National Association of Spa Franchises (NASF) to Elevate Safety Standards in the Massage & Spa Industry

Five of the major national massage brands — Hand & Stone®, Elements Massage®, Massage Heights®, Woodhouse™ and Spavia — have come together to form the National Association of Spa Franchises (NASF), a group committed to enhancing current safety procedures in the massage and spa industry. 

The post Five National Spa Brands Join Forces to Form the National Association of Spa Franchises (NASF) to Elevate Safety Standards in the Massage & Spa Industry appeared first on MASSAGE Magazine.

Self-Care Market Surge Expected to Continue in 2023

The demand for self-care services from WellBiz Brands, Inc., the pre-eminent beauty and wellness franchise platform, is expected to sustain its momentum as the industry continues its surge in consumer demand in 2023 and beyond.

The post Self-Care Market Surge Expected to Continue in 2023 appeared first on MASSAGE Magazine.

GOLDEN DOOR UNVEILS MULTI-MILLION DOLLAR RENOVATION

Golden Door, recognized globally as a pioneer in wellness and named the World’s Best Destination Spa, has unveiled a multi-million dollar renovation that includes a complete overhaul of the bathhouse and pools, as well as updates and enhancements to all forty guest rooms and gyms. 

The post GOLDEN DOOR UNVEILS MULTI-MILLION DOLLAR RENOVATION appeared first on MASSAGE Magazine.

Develop Physician Referrals for Post-Surgery MLD

Manual Lymphatic Drainage (MLD) is in high demand by the public, especially by people undergoing cosmetic surgery. Esthetic body procedures, such as abdominoplasty, buttock augmentation and liposuction, increased by 63% between 2020 and 2022, making MLD a potentially lucrative specialty.

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The Problem with Pickleball: This Popular Sport Serves Up Injuries

Pickleball has become a smash hit in the U.S. in recent years—and along with growth in popularity of this sport popular with the over-50 set has come myriad pickleball injuries, especially in the feet, knees, hips, shoulders and arms, which may respond well to massage therapy.

The post The Problem with Pickleball: This Popular Sport Serves Up Injuries appeared first on MASSAGE Magazine.

Build a Sports Massage Practice by Networking

Developing a professional network is an essential element of building a sustainable business, no matter what field you are in. As the saying goes, “It’s not what you know, but who you know.” As a sports massage therapist, networking with a personal trainer or health coach can be the start of a mutually beneficial referral network.

The post Build a Sports Massage Practice by Networking appeared first on MASSAGE Magazine.

Wisconsin MTs Provide Massage for Low-Income Chronic Pain Clients

At Be Well Madison, a community wellness clinic, massage therapy is not just a luxury reserved for those with extra disposable income. Massage is also being used as a tool to change the lives of low-income older adults living with chronic pain, largely thanks to community center outreach and a two-years-in-a-row Community Service Grant award from the Massage Therapy Foundation (MTF).

The post Wisconsin MTs Provide Massage for Low-Income Chronic Pain Clients appeared first on MASSAGE Magazine.