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The purpose of this study was to measure effects of connective tissue massage (CTM) on the autonomic nervous system using thermography and physiological measurements.

A repeated-measures design was used. The setting was a university laboratory. Skin temperature at the site of massage, blood pressure, heart rate, and dorsal foot temperature were measured in 8 healthy participants before CTM, immediately after, and at 15-minute intervals for 1 hour.

The effect of CTM on skin temperature was statistically significant, P = .011. Post hoc pairwise comparisons revealed that the 15-, 30-, 45-, and 60-minute data all differed significantly from the pre-CTM data (all P < .05) and also from the immediately post-CTM data (all P < .05). For diastolic blood pressure, the main analysis of variance showed a statistical significance at P = .062. For other variables, there was no evidence for …