Effects of different duration of traditional thai massage on parasympathetic nervous system

Abstract

Routine practice of TTM may last 1 - 2 hours depending on available time of clients. We doubt that 1 hour and 2 hours may yield different results. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to investigate the immediate effects of different duration of treatment of traditional Thai massage (TTM) on stress, heart rate variability (HRV) and autonomic nervous system (ANS) function. Seventeen healthy participants were randomly allocated to receive either 1 hour of TTM (1-TTM) group or 2 hour of TTM (2-TTM) group after which they were swabbed to receive the other one with a 2 - week washed out period. Stress, HRV, and ANS function were measured before and immediately after the TTM treatment. Within-groups comparison demonstrated that stress index was decreased (p<0.05) in both groups. Stress resistance, the standard deviation of the normal-to-normal intervals (SDNN) and root mean square of successive differences (RMSSD) were increased (p<0.05) in both groups. Low frequency per high frequency (LF/HF) ratio was decreased (p<0.05) in 1-TTM group. HF and ANS activity were increased (p<0.05) in 1-TTM group whereas LF and ANS balance status were not changed in both groups. However, all of them were not significant difference for between groups comparison. We concluded that a single session of either 1 or 2 hours of TTM could decrease stress and increase heart rate variability whereas only the 1-hour TTM could increase ANS function.