What is massage therapy? There are two distinct ways to approach massage therapy: from an Eastern medicine perspective, it is based more on the body's energy and holistic healing, while in Western medicine, it is based more on muscle physiology . Massage therapy according to Moyer, Rounds and Hannum (2004) is “the manual manipulation of soft tissues intended to promote health and well-being”. According to most people, this type of therapy does the body good, no matter how you look at it. Always hearing people complain about their headaches and saying they need a good massage, does it actually work? Seeing people rub their temples and the back of their neck when they have a headache makes us assume that this is what works, otherwise why would they continue to do it. Well, let's find out what the experiments say. Modern life is rather fast-paced and requires quite a bit of physical and mental activity; this, combined with several other aspects, puts our body under significant stress. It is very common to have tension in the triangular area from the base of the neck to the shoulders. This makes you lift your shoulders and move forward. This often constricts the lungs and makes breathing more shallow, limiting the ability to breathe normally. In addition to breathing problems, posture worsens, which will cause the head to become misaligned, causing certain muscles to provide more support to the head than normal. The back becomes tighter and puts additional pressure on the skull, which pulls on the muscles where the head and neck meet and around the surface of the skull. This adds to some of the most common reasons people get headaches. According to Trivieri and And...... middle of article ...... with these studies and my own personal experience with massage and headaches, I believe that massage therapy does amazing things for headaches. I would recommend a good massage to anyone suffering from headaches almost anytime. Works cited Hernandez-reif M., Deiter J., Field T, (1998). International Journal of Neuroscience. Migraines are reduced by massage therapy, received March 24, 2009 from the EBSCO database. Quinn C., Chandler C., Moraska A., (2002). American Journal of Public Health. Massage therapy and frequency of chronic tension headaches, received March 24, 2009 from the EBSCO database. Trivieri L. and Anderson J. (2002). Alternative medicine: the definitive guide. California: Celestial Arts. Moyer C., Rounds J., Hannum J. (2004). Psychological bulletin. A meta-analysis of massage therapy research received March 24, 2009 from the EBSCO database