Women will undertake sessions of therapeutic massage

Women will undertake sessions of sham massage

Massage therapy involves the administration of combinations of specific physical manipulations applied in a systematic way, with varying intensity, direction, rate, and rhythm, to the soft tissues of the body.

Athens insomnia scale (The AIS is a self-assessment psychometric instrument designed for quantifying sleep difficulty based on the ICD-10 criteria. It consists of eight items: the first five pertain to sleep induction, awakenings during the night, final awakening, total sleep duration, and sleep quality; while the last three refer to well-being, functioning capacity, and sleepiness during the day). Each item of the AIS can be rated 0-3, (with 0 corresponding to no problem at all and 3 to very serious problem); thus, the total score ranges from 0 (absence of any sleep-related problem) to 24 (the most severe degree of insomnia).

Hamilton Anxiety Rating Scale (HAM-A). The scale consists of 14 items. Each item is scored on a scale of 0 (not present) to 4 (severe), with a total score range of 0-56, where <17 indicates mild severity, 18-24 mild to moderate severity and 25-30 moderate to severe.