Massage is a popular complementary treatment used by many to relieve anxiety. But a randomized trial found that low-cost relaxation treatments, namely deep breathing and listening to soft music, are equally effective.

The trial conducted by Group Health Research Institute consisted of 68 patients diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder. The participants were randomly divided into three groups and each group was assigned one of the three 10 treatments: massage, deep breathing, or thermotherapy (also known as heat therapy). Those in the massage group received treatments that were designed to release muscle tension, reduce anxiety symptoms and improve the functions of the parasympathetic nervous system. On the other hand, the heat therapy group had patients’ arms and legs wrapped up in warm towels intermittently to induce relaxation.

All the three treatments were administered by licensed massage therapists in a dimly lighted environment piped with relaxing music. Every treatment lasted one hour per session. All participants were also given instructions to practice deep breathing on their own every day.

At the end of the 12-week treatment, participants were interviewed by researchers to gauge their anxiety levels. Three months later, another round of interview was carried out again.

The results showed that all three groups reported a 40 percent decrease in symptoms after treatment and a 50 percent reduction three months later. Further, patients also reported feeling less worried, depressed and handicapped by their condition. There was no difference found among the three groups.

Initially designed to find out how effective massage is in the treatment of anxiety disorder, the findings of this study were unexpected by the research team.

“We were surprised to find that the benefits of massage were no greater than those of the same number of sessions of ‘thermotherapy’ or listening to relaxing music,” said Karen J. Sherman, PhD, MPH, a senior investigator at Group Health Research Institute.

“This suggests that the benefits of massage may be due to a generalized relaxation response.”

Most people want to lose weight because they’re not happy with the way their body currently looks. They don’t like having extra flab on their arms and legs, and a definitely hate having a big belly. These are all great reasons to start losing weight, but it’s important to do it right from the start. And often, people try to lose weight in the wrong ways, by following a fad diet, or trying to starve themselves. There are much better, more natural ways, to lose weight easily and keep that weight off.

The first thing you need to accept that you can’t lose all of your extra body fat or excess weight in a day or two. You didn’t gain it that fast, and you won’t lose it that fast either. If you haven’t discovered this yet, losing the weight is actually much harder than it was to gain it. So you need to set realistic weight loss goals from start.

The best way to lose weight is to do it slowly and consistently. The more consistent you are with your weight loss, the more likely you are keep that weight off once you’ve lost it.

Losing weight successfully is affected by what you eat yes, but also what you drink. You won’t see nearly as much access with your weight loss goals if you start eating lots of raw vegetables, but you continued drinking sugary sodas and juices. Now of course if you’ve changed from eating chocolate cakes to raw vegetables, this will help, but remember calories and sugar that cause problems with weight can come from liquids as well as foods.

One other natural way to help yourself lose weight keep it off, is to simply eat your food more slowly. Many people don’t realize this, but when you eat your food too fast you actually end up eating more than you wanted or needed. The body usually needs approximately 20 minutes to determine whether or not it has had enough food. So usually if you simply slow down speed at which you’re eating, you’ll end up eating less because you’ve given your body time to let you know it’s had enough.