Massage Therapy Reduces Anxiety and Enhances EEG Patterns...

So many people in the world talk about how beneficial massage can be and that it makes you feel more relaxed. They say that if you receive massage, even just once a month, that it could help you in many different aspects of your life, such as helping depression, lessening anxiety, becoming more relaxed more often, and that it can help you become less stressed in your day to day life. In this research study, the researchers hypothesize that massage would have an effect on anxiety, depression, and alertness. The objective was to show that massage can reduce anxiety, depression, and stress by testing cortisol level and increase alertness by comparing EEG patterns by math computations. This research study is a quantitative research. Most†¦show more content†¦The State Anxiety 1nventory is a 20 item scale test that measures anxiety levels. Cortisol is a hormone secretion that becomes present when a person is under stress, so the researchers tested salivary cortisol levels from a saliva sample. Math computations were measured by giving the subjects 7 numbers before the massage and 7 different numbers given after and the subject was asked to add them together. The time it took to solve the question and its accuracy was recorded. To measure the EEG patterns were one of the most important variables in the study. The subjects put on a special cap, called the Lycra stretchable cap, used you measure delta, alpha, beta, and theta. To prevent data from having an incorrect reading, the subjects had to fill out two questionnaire forms. One was the Life Events Questionnaire. It asked if certain events had taken place in your life lately about the death a loved one or major financial situations. The other was the Job Stress Yesterday Questionnaire. It asked about the day you had at work yesterday and how stressful it was. The subjects had to answer these questions on the first day, and the last day of the study procedure. There was a total of 50 randomly assigned medical staff and faculty to be a part of this study. Out of the 50 subjects, 26 of the subjects were given a 15 minute chair massage twice a week for 5 weeks. The other 24 subjects were asked to sit in the massage chair and