Further thoughts on massage…

Underwear?

You are welcome to keep your underwear on, or to be fully nude under the blankets. You will always be sufficiently covered with a sheet and blanket, I will not expose your entire butt, or the front of your pelvis, or your breasts. If you’d like me to work on your hip area (the glutes), you can go without or wear underwear with a high cut on the thigh. I can also work on your glutes through the blanket.

Silence

I don’t play music or spa sounds, I prefer to work in quiet. With an air purifier, fan or AC going, there’s often some white noise in the background. I value a low-stimulation environment for massage. I’m happy to communicate and even chat, otherwise, enjoy the silence in a loud world.

How often should I book an appointment?

Many of my regular clients come once a month. Sometimes, a more frequent cadence is helpful while rehabbing a body part or when going through stressful times.

So relaxed, I almost fell asleep!

Personally, I have never stayed awake for the duration of a massage. It’s a natural outcome of becoming relaxed while lying down. There’s no drawback to a brief, light snooze. If you’re twitching, and I cannot tell if it’s from falling asleep or from pain, I may awaken you so I’m certain my work is helpful. Also, yes, you were snoring.

Post-massage recap

I’m often asked what I found during your massage. While I am happy to recap my observations, the best way to understand my treatment is to pay attention while it’s happening. I consider my massage to be a long conversation with you, through touch.

Is deeper pressure better, or more impactful?

Many clients assume that unless the pressure is quite deep, there’s no benefit. This comes a from misapprehension of how human tissue works. We tend to think of our pain as muscle that has locked up and requires a hard force to unlock it. Pain science is much more nuanced than that, and in it’s infancy as a research field. Deep pressure is a tool I can use, but it needs specificity to make it helpful. My first approach to any area of tension (a knot, or trigger point) is actually the lightest pressure that I can use to feel and move your tissue. I add deeper pressure in order to elicit a response (a twitch in another area of the muscle, or a softening of the tense spot, or mobilizing it from surrounding tissue).

Some people appreciate a deep pressure because it feels better, and their nervous system responds well to it. For others, it creates a feeling of bracing that is deeply prohibitive to relaxing. We have to communicate to figure it out. A simple “That’s great,” “A little softer,” or “More pressure, please” is always welcome. We’re all different, so please feel free to make a request at any point.

Pfffft. I don’t want one of those relaxing massages.

Heaven forbid that your heart rate lowers, your breathe rate slows, your blood pressure decreases and your brain waves slow down. Kidding, but your deepest pressure massage needs an element of relaxation so that I can actually access different layers of tissue. I’d even argue that the deeper the pressure you want, you should be pretty skilled at settling your nervous system, so you experience deep sensations without stress.

Bodies!

Biology is a wondrous thing, and we’ve all got bodies. Here are a few things you can keep in mind.

Pronouns, gender: I ask for your pronouns because I make no assumptions and want to respect your preferences.

Bigger bodies: I have a wide massage table (35” wide, the standard table size is 28”) to make it comfy for all shapes and sizes.

Pain, illness, disability: Massage is for everyone, and I have many approaches to massage. Let’s talk if you have concerns that make a typical massage inaccessible.

Pregnancy: I’m happy to work on pregnant and post-natal people. We can do side-lying as well as reclining at an angle.

Stuffy noses: Ask for a tissue if you need to blow your nose. Being face down can cause congestion, and mouth breathing isn’t ideal.

Bathroom break: If you have to pee mid-massage, I can hand you a towel to wrap up. There’s a bathroom in my office.

Gurgling stomachs: It’s often a sign that you have relaxed enough to digest (or, it’s time to eat).

Body hair: You don’t have to shave for a massage.

Skin stuff: Unless the skin is infected, open or contagious, then don’t worry. I’ve seen it all.

Chests: For my trans and non-binary clients, please let me know your preferences with chest exposure.

Breasts: We can add support of the shoulders while face-down to alleviate pressure (especially helpful for larger or sensitive breasts). If you are breast-feeding, you can wear leak-proof pads or we can use towels.

Particular parts: I can skip any body part you don’t want touched, for any reason.

Cleanliness: A shower within 24 hours is great. Lots of folks walk or bike to my office, and a little exercise sweat is not a problem.

Comfort while on the table: We can adapt any face-down, face-up or side-lying positions with pillows and supports to make you more comfortable.

Body products: No need to be moisturized, as I use a lotion. Your make-up will likely smear off during our face-down work, so you may want to remove it before your appointment. Please avoid using any strong scents or perfumes.

Lotions, oils: I use a sparing amount of a thick cream (vegan and cruelty free), so you will not be oily or greasy at the end of the appointment. I also have jojoba oil on hand for any who may be allergic to nut oils. I can use topical analgesics at your request (I use Weleda arnica oil).

My boundaries

You need to sign up and pay online for your appointment. This is not only a business practice, it’s a security practice. I need to know your name, contact info and have you commit to payment if I am going to be alone in a room with you.

I’ll end a session if there’s even a whisper of sexual innuendo or requests. I’m too jaded to be intimidated, and I would delight in sharing your name broadly, including with all my massage therapist pals and with authorities. It’s not all cisgender, heterosexual men, but it’s always a cis-het man.

I’ll decline to work with you if you seem incapacitated by any substance that would make communication or consent difficult.

I’ll decline to work with you if you are too mentally agitated to be still, if you have a transmissible illness, or if your skin is not able to take pressure (infection, sunburn).

Can massage release my trauma? are my issues in my tissues? has my body kept the score? IF I release my fascia, will i be healed?

If you feel that you have experienced trauma, massage therapy should NOT be your first attempt to reconcile your experiences. If you have experienced severe, acute or on-going abuse, violence, trafficking, coercion, unaddressed addiction or mental illness, or childhood neglect, please find help with a mental health professional, or connect with a doctor or social worker to find the help you need.

Capital “T” trauma requires a licensed clinician to get you a diagnosis and to provide treatment.

If your trauma begins with a lowercase “t,” know that I operate from a belief in the mind-body connection, with strong professional boundaries. Here’s how I interact with your self-report of trauma:

• I believe you, but I cannot validate what you experience in your body. For example, if you tell me that you hold trauma in your hips, I believe you. However, I don’t spend time in our session trying to validate, invalidate or change what you’ve told me. I may notice that one hip is more tense than the other, but this doesn’t prove or refute what you experience. In fact, one of the best ways I can support someone with trauma is to let them have their own space for their own experience.

• Are your issues in your tissues? Sure, don’t we all experience physical distress in tandem with psychological distress? I don’t think this is mysterious, but I do think it’s very personal. There is not a scientific map of the body that tells us where our emotions live. Working with a somatic therapist (a licensed mental health professional, who uses body-based explorations) would be a great way to develop your personal understanding of your body-mind.

• Fascia gets a lot of bizarre attention, in the weirder corners of wellness. I’ve seen fascia touted as the tissue that provides psychological release, requires unwinding, and as the storage for emotional trauma. There will always be money to be made by convincing people that they are unhealed, and require a specialized technique to become well. While I am endlessly fascinated by the whole human body, fascia included, I don’t think this one particular tissue will solve all your concerns. Fascia is deeply interesting for what we know it does (force transmission), and for what research is discovering (maybe it’s also a sensory system). I use techniques that work directly with your fascia, as a means of improving pain and movement patterns.

• A mental health clinician would not touch you while you are undressed and lying down. As a massage therapist, I do. So, my scope of practice doesn’t include directly addressing mental illness and trauma.

• However! Massage therapy is a beautiful way to connect with your body, even if that connection is fraught (a big hello to all my clients with eating disorders, body image disorders, chronic pain and illness, end stage cancer). It’s a soothing way to be with your thoughts and mind, even if your mind is hard to be with (heyyy to all my clients with depression, anxiety, bipolar, ADHD, autism). It’s a lovely complement to figuring out the best ways to rest your nervous system (that’s all of us living in a violent culture). I take your guidance on your needs, then I create the external techniques of the massage. You get to live inside the internal experience of the massage, and find your peace within it.

What does massage actually do?

Massage is not a cure-all for musculoskeletal issues, though it’s pretty helpful. The different elements of massage (pressure, friction, shear, etc) are essentially inputs that you cannot create yourself internally. Massage can elicit hyperemia (increase in blood to tissues), which promotes circulation. It also loads mechanoreceptors in the connective tissues and muscle, which can prompt an endorphin release (which may be why it feels good). Focus on a knot or tigger point may stimulate a chronically shortened muscle fiber to release. Moving tissues can also unstick them from each other. This all seems to contribute to pain relief and increased motion, even if temporary.

Overall, massage is part of an holistic wellness paradigm: it’s good to find your parasympathetic response, it’s good to increase circulation, it’s good to add stimulus to otherwise stiff areas. Scientific research doesn’t work as generally, so any paper you’ll find is aimed towards proving a specific outcome. I enjoy reading up on this, and am always intrigued by the work around pain science, biomechanics and rehab.

And…it’s also beneficial because it feels nice. Life is short, stress detracts from your well-being. You need a massage.