Is Acupuncture More Effective Than Massage?
Both acupuncture and massage therapy have their benefits, but is one more effective than the other? Is one more effective at treating specific conditions? In this article, we investigate the benefits of both massage and acupuncture to determine which therapy is most effective, or if one is better than the other for certain conditions.
So, what is better, massage or acupuncture?
Read on to learn more about the efficacy of Acupuncture vs. Massage.
Both acupuncture and massage have their individual benefits, but the question of whether one is more effective than the other should be considered against individual conditions to be fair; they are completely different treatments that come with their own set of advantages and disadvantages.
What’s more, the efficacy of each treatment will also depend on the client in question, and their medical history. What works well for one client, may not work for another.
A review published in 2021 comparing popular CAM treatments (including acupuncture and massage) for five common chronic conditions concluded that there was low-grade evidence of improvement with acupuncture and massage for chronic pain but as is often found , there were design flaws in many of the studies, limiting the certainty of the findings. NIH
A earlier study found that massage is an effective treatment for persistent back pain when compared to spinal manipulation and has clinical benefits that are equivalent to other commonly used therapies ACP . However, another study into the effectiveness of acupuncture for back pain concluded that acupuncture was more effective in improving pain than no acupuncture treatment in patients with chronic low back pain JAMA.
Meanwhile, a recent systematic review looking at massage for neck pain concluded that massage was comparable to acupuncture for neck pain Science Direct
If we move away from chronic pain and look towards an area where both acupuncture and massage are commonly used, sports injuries and athletic performance, we see this gap in effectiveness close somewhat; both treatments offer similar benefits in this area. BMJ,NIH
In a cancer setting both acupuncture and massage were demonstrated to be useful and accessible to “hard to reach “groups. PMC
Acupuncture offers pain relief, inflammation reduction, improved circulation, and trigger point release for sports injuries, such as soft-tissue injuries. Meanwhile massage DOMS reduction, reduces chronic pain, improves recovery times, prevents further pain and injury, and increases muscle flexibility.
Determining whether acupuncture or massage is more effective is dependent on the condition being treated, and the benefits sought. Neither treatment is inherently better than the other, and studies show that they may even work best when used in conjunction with one another. However, if your clients are still unsure, you can always provide some of the key benefits of each treatment to help them decide.
Benefits of Acupuncture
Some of the long-term benefits of acupuncture include:
- Pain relief or pain management
- Improvements to mental health
- Improvements in quality of sleep
- Improvements to musculoskeletal conditions
- Immune system support
- Digestive support
- Improvements to arthritis and osteoarthritis
Benefits of Massage
Some of the key benefits of a sports massage include:
- Increased range of motion
- Increased flexibility
- Increased sense of wellbeing
- Decreases recovery time
- Decreased muscle tension
- Decreased muscle spasms
- Better sleep
