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by Reena Daruwalla, guest writer for Nancy Hayssen.com

My sister in law once memorably said, “man has gone up to the moon, but no one thought to invent a caress machine”. Evidently that would have been a far more useful invention than a space ship capable of traveling to the moon!

Touch or our tactile sense is tremendously powerful and able to bring us great pleasure or great disgust. While a lewd stranger’s grope in the dark may cause the sort of revulsion that can mark us almost for life, a light touch from a loved one can have the opposite effect.

Massage or the precise manipulation of the body with the hands can relieve stress or pain and reduce swelling, relax muscles, and speed healing after strains and sprains. Massage includes light or hard stroking, compression (kneading, squeezing, and friction), and percussion (striking with the edges of the hands in rapid alternation).

Massage can be a form of warm and loving communication between two people. Performing this small but intimate service for your partner can be fulfilling and foster a great sense of bonding. Using fragrant body massage oil of choice, massage can relieve stress and foster a great sense of well being and togetherness between two people. In fact I find that it can be a very exciting form of foreplay.

This is not to say that massage is just a favor to be exchanged between couples, the benefits of massage are many and a trained professional can do you a power of good with a massage session. There are many different kinds of massage and the methods of massage used in the tiny South Indian state of Kerala is becoming world famous now. The massage therapists there are one of the reasons that Kerala is known as God’s own country!

While a whole spa treatment would be a wonderfully relaxing and rejuvenating experience, even a massage session with a trained masseuse can do wonders. Nancy has listed a whole bunch of great benefits that you can get out of regular massage in her book too.