History Of Honey & Health Benefits Of Honey
The diligent little bee has been an almost invisible companion to humanity for a very long time creating quite the history of honey. Documentation of their activity, the honey they produce, and honey health benefits go back thousands of years.
- A Sumerian scripture, written around 2000 BC offers a prescription for treating a wound, “Grind to a powder river dust … (words missing on translated text) then knead it in water and honey and let plain oil and hot cedar oil be spread over it.”
- The Ebers papyrus written about 1550 BC includes honey in 147 of its prescriptions for external applications, from use against baldness to healing ointments used after surgery and to reduce inflammation.
- The Ayurvedic texts of ancient India written about 500 AD indicate honey being used for the cleaning and healing of wounds as well as against many internal and external infections.
- Ancient Greeks thought of honey as medicine and believed that it would prolong life.
- The Mayan culture used the honey of a stingless bee to treat cataracts.
Today interest in the use of honey as a type of medicine, or apitherapy, is growing. A renewed awareness of the healing properties is seen in home remedies, honey supplements, as well as over-the-counter items. Honey is not just sugar. It contains many important nutrients including calcium, iron, magnesium, phosphorous, and potassium as well as numerous vitamins, enzymes, antioxidants, and probiotics.
How To Give A Honey Massage
There are many massage with honey benefits. When applied externally, honey acts as a humectant. That is, it attracts and promotes the retention of water. When added to a lotion or oil, it softens and hydrates the skin. It also contains many vitamins and minerals which will be absorbed into the skin. Just one tablespoon of honey contains calcium (20.3 mg), iron (1.4 mg), magnesium (6.8 mg), and potassium (176 mg). Honey also contains Vitamins C and B6, riboflavin, and folate. The best thing of course is, although a tablespoon of honey contains about 64 calories, when used externally in a honey massage session, those calories don’t add on any weight!
There is a specialized technique for honey massage. Different from a Swedish massage which uses the gliding properties of oils to allow the hands to move easily along the skin, honey provides little glide and a lot of stickiness. The technique used is perhaps more related to something like cupping because, instead of gliding, the palmar surface of the hands of the therapist pulls up on the skin resulting in a pumping motion, which stimulates reflex zones, improves circulation, and helps the body in removal of toxins.
In your own practice, you can add a small amount of honey to your massage oil creating a honey massage oil. The National Honey Board recommends about five tablespoons of honey mixed with two cups of almond oil and two tablespoons of rose oil (not essential oil). You may want to adjust the quantities for your own comfort level with regard to glide and technique. You can also add a drop or two of essential oil for added therapeutic value, such as lavender for relaxation.
Honey Tea, Beeswax Candles, & Honey Face Masks
If you want to create a complete experience in the honey massage session you can always add the relaxing scent of honey through the use of beeswax candles. Using beeswax candles (instead of paraffin-based candles) have the added benefit of being non-toxic, sootless, and environmentally friendly. It also has a soothing effect because beeswax candles, when lit, emit negative ions which have been shown to reduce depression. Kind of like that pleasant feeling, you get after a rainfall for the same reasons.
Offering your client a nice cup of honey tea with a teaspoon or two of honey added, after the massage session, is a nice way to complete the experience. (Try Manuka honey tea for added benefits!)
Help to celebrate National Honey Month by enticing your clients with a sweet and relaxing experience.
Follow Us
I am concerned about one thing – exploitation. The honey we buy in supermarkets is not honey, and the real cold extracted honey with all the health benefits is expensive and rare. Due to bee dying honey will become even more scarce. The bees are also weakened by humans stealing all their honey and replacing it with worthless sugar water – of course out of greed. This conflicts me when I see that honey is more promoted, for me this translates into more atrocities against nature…
I agree with you! We should leave the honey to the bees, to give them a chance to recover!
Seriously? If you feel this way then the answer is simple…. don’t use or offer ANY BEE products for your business, clientel or your self. Dont push your guilt onto others. I respect nature and natural products and use them regularly despite the cost. If you cant run with the big dogs go back in the fence. Stop trying to make others and the choices they make feel guilty!
Respectfully, stating facts or concerns and “pushing guilt onto others” are two very different things.
My own concern is that we are going too far with the “luxury” side of massage therapy. Using honey in a world where millions are dying of hunger (etc.) is a little bit too much. That is my personal opinion. I hope that is not seen as an act of pushing guilt onto any persons – just in the same way that I would hesitate to say the article is pushing its ideas onto me. These I simply see as opinions and thoughts to consider/think about. Make life more interesting, if nothing else. 🙂
Best wishes.
I am afraid your well-intentioned and loving response does not ‘hang’ logically. Must we all go about in minimal clothing and eat out of dumpsters because of the poor choices, greed, mismanagement, and senseless rearing of more children than others can afford to raise safely? Use cheap, dirtier mineral oil instead of healthier, more expensive and easier to wash out coconut oil? A floor, or slap-together table, instead of one we can adjust to our comfort level or thickness of client? You may not mean for it to, and I agree with you about excess, but you are a guilt pusher, deny it or not, intend it or not. This comes from one whose parents have had many dumpster meals, and I have eaten at their table often enough, so I equally respectfully point this disconnect out. My dad used to have some beehives, and I have had my share of stings while helping him, decades ago.
English is not my native language so I apologize if I can not be concise/brief in order to reply to your comment and to explain my own stand/position.
In my original comment, where was any mention of going about in minimal clothing and eating out of dumpsters?! Or the rest of the things you attribute to my writing?!!
Your attitude and the way you write, sir, talks a world about yourself. It is an attitude I’m very familiar with, twisting things and giving people’s words a different meaning.
All I said, if you were kind enough to read my comment, was that I’m concerned we are going too far with the luxury of massage practice. I followed that with these words:
“That is my personal opinion. I hope that is not seen as an act of pushing guilt onto any persons – just in the same way that I would hesitate to say the article is pushing its ideas onto me. These I simply see as opinions and thoughts to consider/think about. Makes life more interesting, if nothing else”.
Massage has many many benefits, as I’m sure you are aware. Thinking of this world, even here in US, and the poverty and hunger that millions are facing (as well as what is going on with bees, etc.) makes me wonder if we are not going too far with our practices. It is a legitimate thing to wonder about. It is a humanitarian issue that I’m certain any people (including massage therapists) may also be wondering about. I have had American friends who think even normal massage is too much of a luxury in the world that we live in (and I have argued with them that it is not). People do question things, and this one (using honey for massage) was one that made myself wonder.
But your way of writing and misrepresenting my comment, trying to twist it, really says a lot about yourself. You may want to consider joining certain politicians; you could do very well.
However, even if (as you have typed here) my original comment (not the one you are trying to make it appear to be) does not hang “logically”, I will say to you that it hangs emotionally. It talks of hearts, humanity, good intentions, wisdom, being considerate for others, not being too self centered, and more. And if you ask me, the best massage therapists I’ve known hang mostly from the heart not the kind of logic that you have in mind,.
Look at your own words! I never said anyone should “go about in minimal clothing and eat out of dumpsters because of the poor choices, greed, mismanagement, and senseless rearing of more children than others can afford to raise safely? Use cheap, dirtier mineral oil instead of healthier, more expensive and easier to wash out coconut oil? A floor, or slap-together table, instead of one we can adjust to our comfort level or thickness of client?” !!!!!!????
Where did all of that come from, my writing or your mind and fantasy? Why are you going to such extremes?!!
And I’m not a guilt pusher, I simply made a comment; something that I’m questioning of myself, which may also be something others are considering (or I may motivate/encourage them to consider).
Is it possible that your own conscience has been triggered by what I said and it is now pushing yourself into guilt because perhaps there is a voice deep inside you that is questioning the same thing as I am?
I’m very pleased to read a little about your own family background and youth/childhood (I’m replying to you as I read your comment). I hope you are very proud of yourself and your father. I hope you will always remember what you are telling me of your earlier life and never try to go in denial but instead continue to keep your head up about it. Sounds like an honorable working class family to me, what you say of your father. Bless him. And bless you my friend.
Would they have ever thought of using the honey to get a massage, I wonder..?! Probably not. Not your father, I don’t think – but how can I know?!..
I’ve spend many years of my life (35 or so) in exile. The country I come from has suffered much: war, (so called) revolution, etc. – much of it because of foreign colonialists. That is a different story but the reason I mentioned it is this: I came from a relatively very wealthy family. I would have easily had a honey massage, had it been offered to me during the earlier years of my life. War and exile forced me to open my eyes and look at the miserable lives of millions upon millions of people. War, famine, poverty, suffering, bloodshed, having to walk with bear feet for miles to collect some water, etc., etc.
Over the years (in my struggles within) I learned that while I must take good care of myself (ie, get massages regularly, if I can, so I maintain a good health), I should also not be too selfish and self centered and try to keep a balance between taking care of myself and wanting things for my own personal life AND the lives of other human beings.
That is my attitude. It comes from a heart that is quite selfless (by now) and caring and loving (by nature). If you ask me, that heart and nature of mine is in fact my best tool in my massages practice and the massages that I have been giving to well over 2000 people during this past 14 years or so. And the kind of work I do certainly does not need honey.
But that is me. Again, I did not even suggest that everyone should be like me!!! I simply share my own thoughts and feelings. That is what we all do, is it not?
I wish you the very best my friend. In your life and in your practice.
Last but not least, I myself have (unintentionally) misinterpreted others in the past. May be at times intentionally, also. It happens: we are human. Live and learn.
So if there is a voice in you that agrees with some of the things I said that concerns you, don’t feel bad.
A person can only create a comment. When you process that comment, you choose to create the vibration of guilt in response within your body.
Bees are in danger and over-harvested. Just like the oceans or any “wild” source. Without people who are not profiting, standing up for these resources, perhaps they would be devastated beyond a healthy recovery. (Enough genetic variation left for good breeding)
I believe the woman was saying that massage is luxurious enough without the addition of honey, which is already being over-harvested. Whether you agree or not, you don’t have to empower her words with guilt. You accuse her of being raised in a poor family and I accuse you of playing the victim. This is just a conversation about honey and massage, no need to fight battles over it.
So then, blame the victim. Poor people are all responsible for their poverty — push the guilt onto them.
Your arguments are nothing but straw men. The question is whether excessive greed that might be environmentally damaging are justified, and you talk about doing massages on nailed-together 2×4’s. You’re not interested in dialog — only justification, Jason.
I’m not sure that you took from massage school all the right lessons.
The article was for informational purposes and hopefully will bring awareness to the plight of the bees. I would not buy mass marketed honey. If I was to use it at all, I would go to a local, reputable aviary where the bee-keeper really knows his or her bees, knows where they feed and what they feed on. You can find these in farm markets, locally owned groceries and road side stands. These individuals are trying to help protect and increase the bee population unlike the big commercial companies.
I love to use raw honey in my products for the many skin benefits that it offers. We are blessed to have many beekeepers in our area.
One of the things I hoped to do with the article is to bring awareness to bees and honey, but this was done within the scope of the topic of its use in massage therapy. Hopefully, it will lead to readers getting more information and becoming informed about the plight of the bees and how their exploitation and misuse is harmful to the environment and our health. There are many small, family own apiaries that practice bee-keeping and honey production in a responsible way. There are also many individual who now keep back-yard hives. Always choose the source of honey carefully and wisely. Purchase honey and other products, such as bees wax candles or propolis from reputable local bee-keepers. They will be able to give you information about where their bees feed and what type of plants they feed from. Many bee-keepers also offer informational sessions on bee-keeping and on the dangers bees are facing in today’s world.
Interesting post. you have done well. surely honey will not provide the gliding properties of oils, in a Swedish massage.
Can we have more creative ways to use honey on the shu points please?
Thanks.
Wow. Do you realize that honey bees would not be in the US only except Europeans wanted honey when they came to the New World? Progress often has side effects that are not desired, but I would not like to live in the past. Sadly, fewer people are keeping bees so the return of other insects to the role of pollinators seems eminent. I’m sorry if it offends you that I enjoy life with domesticated or as you call them, “exploited” animals: for companionship (pets), food, clothing, health, etc.
People are so combative ! If you don’t like it, fine. But keep your nasty comments to yourself.