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Areas of Expertise

Essentials Natural Family Health offers a wide range of massage specialties for patients with specific health goals and ailments. We offer the best massage therapists in the Omaha metro area specializing in the following different techniques. Please take a look and see which modality fits with what you are looking for in your experience.


SWEDISH

Swedish massage aims for whole body health as it provides general relaxation, improved lymphatic and blood circulation, and energizes the body through a series of gentle strokes. These strokes include: effleurage (long, gliding strokes), petrissage (kneading), tapotement (various tapping movements to stimulate the tissue), friction, vibration, and joint movement.


DEEP TISSUE

Deep tissue massage is especially helpful for chronically tense and contracted areas such as stiff necks, low back tightness, and sore shoulders. It focuses on realigning deeper layers of muscles and connective tissue. The movement is slower than classic massage therapy and the pressure is deeper and concentrated on areas of tension and pain. Deep tissue massage works by physically breaking down adhesions to relieve pain and restore normal movement.


PREGNANCY MASSAGE

Studies indicate that massage therapy performed during pregnancy can reduce anxiety, decrease symptoms of depression, relieve muscle aches and joint pains, and improve labor outcomes and newborn health. Swedish massage is the recommended prenatal massage method during pregnancy, because it addresses many common discomforts associated with the skeletal and circulatory changes brought on by hormone shifts during pregnancy.


SPORTS MASSAGE

Whether you are a weekend warrior or a fitness fanatic, sports massage can help you get back into your game. Our therapists have worked on some of Omaha's best athletes and have seen dramatic performance results. By improving muscle flexibility and blood circulation, sports massage not only helps to reduce swelling and repair damage once an injury has been sustained, but it also helps prevent injuries from occurring in the first place.


TRIGGER POINT

Trigger point therapy is also known as Myotherapy or Neuromuscular Therapy and applies concentrated pressure to "trigger points" to break cycles of spasm and pain. Trigger points are hyperirritable nodules that cause pain and dysfunction in joint mobility and will cause a pain response that can radiate to other areas when pressure is applied to it. They are most often located in muscle tissue, but can also be found in scar tissue, skin tissue, joint capsules, ligaments, and fascia. There are several different types of trigger points with a high percentage of the most common trigger points aligning at the site of known acupuncture points.

There are various ways to deactivate or alleviate trigger points. However, massage therapy typically uses ischemic compression, which is a sustained deep pressure on the trigger point. This pressure will cause pain, but should be tolerable and diminish as the trigger point releases. It is important to have open communication with your therapist about your pain levels and when you feel the pain diminish. After the trigger point has been released, the therapist will often do gentle stretching to the muscle.


MYOKINESTHETICS

MyoKinesthetics focuses on finding the cause of postural abnormalities or imbalances in order to clear all of the compensations that a body makes for them, which results in a body that is in balance. The MyoKinesthetic System alleviates pain, restores function and movement, improves balance and posture, and resets the body while clearing compensations. This is achieved by stimulating each muscle along an individual nerve pathway to encourage the nerve endings within each muscle to send a signal to the brain for change.


REFLEXOLOGY

Reflexology is a therapeutic method of relieving pain by stimulating predefined pressure points on the feet and hands. This controlled pressure alleviates the source of the discomfort. In the absence of any particular malady or abnormality, reflexology may be as effective for promoting good health and for preventing illness as it may be for relieving symptoms of stress, injury, and illness.