How Often Should I Get a Massage?

 

In the often hectic & stressful environment that is NYC, having a self-care plan or routine in place is key. A good self care plan can greatly aid in reducing the physical and mental effects of this stress. Deciding to integrate massage therapy into your self-care routine often begs the question: “how often should I come in for a massage?” There is no one-size fits all answer, but here are some general guidelines depending on your lifestyle and health. Hopefully, these will help you determine an effective frequency to keep you pain free!

General Recommendations: How Often Should I Get a Massage?

First rule: Don’t wait for a crisis! Start adding massage therapy to your routine before you get injured. You’ll need to come far less often and also vastly improve your ability to prevent future injury.

For any actual pain symptoms, we recommend a series of massage therapy sessions with no more than 2 weeks between sessions. Depending on the severity of your pain and the causes the series will be anywhere from 3-8 sessions.

Once you are no longer experiencing pain, you can switch to a maintenance cycle of massage sessions. This is important to keep the pain from coming back. For people who work highly stressful jobs or work out hard regularly, we recommend a maintenance massage every 2-4 weeks. For the rest of you, a maintenance massage every 6-12 weeks usually does the trick of keeping you pain free!

For More Information: How Often Should I Get a Massage?

Doing Physical Therapy? Massage Therapy Can Improve Results!

 

7 Reasons why this powerful combination works

Pain sucks. As a massage therapist, I would know. Almost everyone who comes to see me does so because they’re in pain! Many times, they are already seeing a physical therapist and not entirely happy with the results. What many don’t realize is that the combination of physical therapy and massage can give greater results than either modality on it’s own. 

Most of the time, my clients have such a powerful response to massage therapy they don’t need additional therapies. However, that isn’t always the case. I always look for clues that indicate I may need to refer a client to another practitioner, such as a physical therapist. 

Update September 2020: Sometimes those clues are less about what the “best” course of treatment would be. And more about finding a way to help a client make their budget work. PT is covered by insurance far more often than massage therapy is (for now). Sometimes, I think a combination of PT and massage will work as well as massage on it’s own. If so, I will often recommend a client work with a PT 1-2 times a week and with me once every 2-4 weeks.

The PT will help the client make small but steady gains. In my sessions, I’ll then focus on making bigger leaps. Assuming the PT sessions are covered by insurance, the client spends less money overall and arrives at a pain free place. It just might take a little bit longer to get there. You can find several great PT’s that we send clients to on our colleagues page!

For More Information: Massage Therapist In NYC

Massage Therapy for Diastasis Recti: A Case Study with Debbie J

 

Getting to the core of the issue

First off, what is this strange sounding condition?

Diastasis Recti is most common among pregnant or postpartum women. About two thirds of pregnant women have it. So why have you never heard of it? People don’t talk about it! And hardly anyone knows that massage therapy for diastasis recti can help. 

The facts:

Diastasis Recti is a condition where the rectus abdominis splits down the middle causing a vertical gap in the abdominal muscles. It can cause lower back pain, constipation, and urine leaking. It can even make it harder to breathe and to move normally.

How to treat it if you have it:

Massage therapy for Diastasis Recti can be very helpful to rebuild proper abdominal tone as long as you’re also working with a physical therapist who specializes in this issue. An experienced massage therapist can open stuck tissues that are pulling the abdominal muscles outward. These stuck tissues are generally from previous injuries that have left scar tissue behind. In addition to this kind of bodywork, you’ll need physical therapy exercises to knit the torn muscles back together.

For More Information: Massage Therapy NYC

Massage Therapy for Ankle Sprains: Advice for Runners

Massage Therapy for Ankle Sprains: what to do from the moment you get injured…

Massage therapy for ankle sprains wasn’t my intended topic this week. Then I took a bad fall in a parkour class trying to jump a 12 foot gap. (I made it 11′ 9″). I’ve now got about 6-8 weeks of healing, before exercising again in any weight-bearing or high impact capacity. And definitely won’t be doing the NYC Marathon this year. Based on my own professional assessment, anyway.

It’s also timely and useful for those of you currently training for the NYC Marathon or the Ironman Triathlon to know a bit more about treating ankle sprains.

Update August 2020: Sadly, there will not be an NYC Marathon this year due to COVID-19! Our advice is to take training slowly and use the break this gives as a way to avoid injury next year 

I know that there is a lot of info out there about what to do and what not to do. And mub ch of this info is confusing and conflicting. So I’m going to walk you through what to do based on the most recent science. And show you when to add in massage therapy for ankle sprains. Using my own injury as an example.

For More Information: Massage Therapy NYC

Our Top 5 Tips to Avoid Text Neck Pain!

 

The perils of “always on” technology:

Okay, so your “text neck” probably won’t actually kill you (unless you are texting and driving). However, it’s becoming increasingly likely that at some point in the next 5-10 years of tech use, you’ll develop a repetitive stress disorder. So we’ve compiled some tips for text neck to help your phone becoming a pain in the neck!

The phrase carpal tunnel syndrome (wrist pain) has been part of the collective conscious for several decades. It’s so common as a disrupter of productivity that it has spawned an entire industry of ergonomics solutions. These range from special keyboards to Star Trek styled full desk/monitor set ups. All keep you at your desk longer making trades, typing contracts, writing legal memos.

And then the 2000’s came along. Most of us jumped all in with smartphones and laptops and tablets.

Update September 2020: So now we’ve all got Zoom issues too! Not quite the same as text neck as we don’t have to look down. But a lot of folks are complaining about headaches and TMJ from so many meetings staring at a screen. All the more reason to play with strategies to lessen screen time throughout the rest of your day! In addition, masks are vitally important from a safety perspective…and also are contributing to some jaw, neck, and head tension. On the plus side, covid massage safety protocols are working great! So getting a neck pain massage in Midtown or Fidi to help is totally safe!

Suddenly we could be productive all the time.

Standing on the subway platform?

Let me check my email.

Taking the train in from CT?

Let me just go over those sales reports.

Date just went to the bathroom?

Let me text my assistant to make sure I’m set up for tomorrow’s board meeting.

Unfortunately, there are costs to constant device use that might change your mind about your phone and tablet.

Looking down at our phone, tablet, or laptop, pulls our head forward and down. This imbalances all the muscles holding up your head (ahem… text neck). These imbalances can cause any and all of the following:

• neck pain
• shoulder pain
• TMJ
• headaches
• low back pain
• carpal tunnel syndrome
• anxiety
• low energy
• depression
• memory loss

For More Information: Neck Pain Massage in New York 

Work From Home Tips: Don’t Ignore Your Self Care!

 

Work From Home Tips – Ways to improve your home office

I’ve now been a 10 year self-employed writer, then a 13+ year massage therapist, a life coach, and most recently have grown my practice to have 28 employees. Including 23 massage therapists who train under me and see clients at my practice. In that time I’ve had to learn self care for the entrepreneur (or working from home in general) the hard way! So I’ve compiled some of my best work from home tips for you. 

Update September 2020: Wow, this post is now super relevant…we’ve all been stuck at home here in NYC due to COVID-19. Originally this post was focused on self-employed, since those were the folks usually working from home. Now, EVERYONE is working from home to some degree. So we’ve made a few updates and edits, and included a great free ergonomics video at the end from our Bodyworks DW TV subscription series of self-care videos. Enjoy!

I’ve seen working from home from a lot of different angles. Both from my own experience and from working with and talking to hundreds of self-employed massage and coaching clients.

Along the way we’ve learned good practices for keeping your work life from feeling like it’s all-consuming. And ways to actually get and feel the freedom you were looking for going in… And the stability you thought you might never see again.

So, for the entrepreneurs, whether just starting out, or building out your third 100+ employee company, here’s some of our best self-care for the entrepreneur advice for de-stressing.

And for the rest of your now working from home and not sure when (or if) you’ll be returning to the office, here are some welcome work from home tips!

For More Information: Work From Home Tips: Don’t Ignore Your Self Care!

Deep Tissue Massage for Back Pain: What are the Best Therapeutic Techniques?

 

Back pain massage is one of the most common requests of our massage therapy clients. Deep tissue massage for back pain can be a life saver! Our spine protects and houses a large part of our central nervous system. When trauma or dysfunction happens to your body, it is going to want to protect this region first. One way that your body does this is by sending pain signals to the area. The pain is a signal to rest and heal. Unfortunately, with our busy lives, we tend to ignore this signal. 

“Splinting” (ie contracting) the spinal muscles is another way that your body protects itself. This can help with an immediate injury. But it can exacerbate chronic back pain and tightness. Back pain massage is a holistic approach to rectify this dysfunction. Therapists communicate through touch to your nervous and muscular systems. The massage helps your brain understand that the original injury has healed. When your brain processes that it realizes that it doesn’t need to protect anymore. So it lets your back muscles go. The splinting is no longer necessary.  

Great massage therapists employ many different deep tissue massage techniques

Back pain can be the result of a wide variety of neuromuscular issues. And responses to various kinds of trauma. Therefore, our approach for each client case is unique. Crafting an effective massage requires an understanding of how each technique is going to affect your specific body. Each technique has a specific intention. And also produces a different sensation and result. Massage therapists frequently combine techniques to achieve an overall result. This includes reduction in pain, tightness, and restriction!

For More Information: Deep tissue massage for back pain

Massage for Sports Injuries: What is Scar Tissue and How Can Massage Help As We Age?

When were your first sports injuries?

If you are into sports now, odds are you started playing team sports when you were young. I remember my first soccer tryout at 9. I also remember my first sprained ankle from getting slide tackled at 11. There were a lot more sports injuries where that came from between then and now. Soccer, track, cross country, cycling, swimming, and later aikido. And that one ill fated parkour class during which I sprained my ankle. I wish I had known about massage therapy for sports injuries a lot earlier!

Along the way I’ve sprained both ankles more than once. And severely torn a hamstring muscle twice. I’ve smashed fingers and toes, and torn a rotator cuff. I’ve gotten a bone spur on my wrist, had shin splints, plantar fasciitis, hip pain, low back pain, and herniated a disc in my neck.

How I’ve kept active despite these injuries

To keep moving I’ve had a lot of bodywork, acupuncture, physical therapy, and chiropractic work since my mid 20’s. Without it, I’d be taped together with duct tape just to function. And probably would have needed a few different surgeries (currently surgery free at 48).

Like most of you, I’ve got the scars to prove my sports history. Unfortunately, as I get older, all of these old sports injuries make it even more likely that I’ll re-injure myself. So I’ve learned the hard way to be more cautious and create a regular self-care routine.

For More Information:  Sports Massage In NYC