Does massage therapy reduce cortisol?

Back in May 2010, one of the presentations I gave at the Highlighting Massage Therapy in Complementary and Integrative Medicine Conference in Seattle gave an overview of my research group's work to definitively measure the effect of massage therapy on cortisol (the stress hormone produced by the cortex of the adrenal glands).  There were a couple of persons at the conference who wished to attend a simultaneous session and who asked if I could later make my slides available to them, so I recorded a new version of my presentation to accompany the slides just for them.  I'm now posting this to YouTube so that anyone who is interested can take a look and listen.

And, if you are really interested in this topic, a reprint of the full report, which appeared in the January 2011 issue of Journal of Bodywork and Movement Therapies, is available from my faculty webpage.

-CM