Look down any street in America and here’s what you probably won’t see: a massage studio marked with an Rx, a red cross or any other medical sign.

If you do see any kind of massage therapy facility, you may not really know what it has to offer, either.

But regardless of the lack of accessible medical facilities for this practice, massage is part of medical therapy, as any chiropractor or even a family practice physician will tell you.

Think about all of the stuff that is inside the human body: muscles, tendons and ligaments “wrap” around bones, with all of the other tissues, as well as the circulatory system, jammed into your limbs and other body parts like the intricate wiring of a high-engineered car or electronic device.

Okay, so it’s kind of a weird metaphor.  But here’s the thing: when you think about how all of your body’s systems interact, it should be evident that all of this stuff could use some calibration once in a while.

That’s essentially what massage does for the body.  By moving around various specific elements of the body (usually in very small, precise motions), massage can free up blocked muscles and improve circulation by loosening up areas that may be suffering from a kind of rigid stasis.

So what is it about massage that Americans just don’t take seriously?  For most of us, the only massage we will ever get is in the chiropractor’s office, where the doctor is cracking our spines and shifting our hips to try to relieve an intensely misaligned spinal system, nearly ruined from years of misuse or overuse.

And that’s the point: when we get massage therapy from a physician as part of “emergency care” or a general office visit, it seems like second nature.  But as preventative medicine...?

Part of the idea may have to do with the fact that massage really isn’t something that you can do for yourself: trained therapists can figure out how to use the ancient practice efficiently.  And, as people who like to do things for ourselves, many of us may not choose to order up this kind of therapy unless it’s a last resort.

But massage therapy can play a role in keeping the body strong and agile, or re-powering an injured limb.  

A possible solution would be for doctors to prescribe massage therapy as a preventative care tactic.  If this is done for a wider range of ailments, we could see some instances of circulatory disorders decrease.

Barring that kind of change, we’ll have to rely on our own common sense and start thinking about massage therapy as a reasonable elective visit.  After all, it’s not something new: massage therapy has proven its use through centuries, just like other forms of “alternative medicine” that aren’t getting a good audience these days.

So ask your doctor what massage therapy could do for you, and don’t be hesitant to flow up and try it out.