Massage - an excellent tool in your fight against Flu

Massage is an excellent ally in your fight against Flu.
The best way to fight against Flu is to prevent it and massage does a great job in this matter.
Massage Therapy helps prevent the flu in several ways:
Reduces the stress thus helping your body focus more on fighting the infection.
Improve blood and lymph circulation consequently the elimination of “intruders” is more effective.
Increases the overall health and this leads to better immunity.
If you are a physical active person one massage session per month during the flu season would help you drastically reduce the chances to get infected with Influenza. If you are an inactive person a little bit more than once per month would be very beneficial for your health.
Flu is one of the contraindications for a massage for several reasons:
The Therapist is a person in contact with many people so there is a high risk to spread the virus.
Usually Flu is associated with high fever – which one of the cases when is strictly contraindicated.
Even when the fever is not very high, a massage would worsen the symptoms, even though it will shorten the illness time.

Despite the contraindication of a Massage for flu there are situations and Massage Techniques that can be applied to relieve the flu illness.
As the person who gives the massage you can apply certain techniques only if you are not in contact with other people, (an active massage therapist).
You should never give a massage when the receiver has high fever. The high fever is a sign that the body already responded to the virus and it fights it. A massage would actually increase the fever so it is strictly contraindicated.
After the fever is gone you can give a massage to speed up the recovery. You can give a gentle massage including effleurage, light Tapotement on the lungs area to help elimination of mucus, and very light friction.
Head Massage is also a highly effective technique for recovery after flu. It helps draining the sinuses, alleviate head aches, usually associated with Colds and Flu, increases circulation alleviate many other symptoms.