Dear Massage Client, please stop asking for a particular type of pressure!
By limiting your expectation of massage to a pressure gauge. you limit the massage experience and opportunity to reconnect with your body and discovering what it is really going on with the symptoms you are experiencing.
The most common thing a massage therapist hears in conversation with every client, yes EVERY client, is the word tight.
I would like to find the person that started this trend of describing muscles as tight, lock them in a room with a thesaurus and not let them out until that have eradicated that word from their vocabulary. There are so many better words than tight to describe muscle discomfort and there is a wealth of imagination and metaphor that could be used to describe what a client is experiencing.
Yes, massage can relax and release muscle fibers that are held and tonic.
Yes, massage can stretch muscle tissue that has become over contracted and shortened.
Yes, massage can improve circulation, lymph flow and nerve sensation to an area that is inhibited.
Those are just a few of the physiological benefits of massage and not once was the word TIGHT used in those descriptions.
If you think that massage is simply for easing muscle tension then you can stop reading here and hopefully have been encouraged to use better words to help your massage therapist relate to what you are experiencing and therefore apply a more targeted and effected treatment.
Muscle tension is a reflection of unreleased emotion.
Most people go for a massage because they are experiencing physical discomfort, but that discomfort is always linked to lifestyle and circumstances and there is always emotion present within that. You don't have to know what emotions, thoughts or feelings are creating the discomfort or if you do, you don't have to share it with the therapist. However, I would strongly encourage you to head into a massage session with the intention of allowing yourself to discover, process and release any pent-up emotions or feelings.
It may not always be appropriate to do so in the treatment session, but the insight you gain can be highlighted and earmarked for processing later on when you are in a setting that is more appropriate for what you are experiencing.
Stop expecting your massage therapist to save you!
Discovering the links between your body, mind and emotions, you will get a much deeper, freeing and tension releasing response from your massage treatments. This may require you to let go of the idea that your massage therapist has to push hard to stop muscles being tight. Instead feel what the sensation of touch does for you on a physical, mental and emotional level, and if you don't know how to articulate that yet, please refrain from just asking for more pressure!
Of course, if you do just go in for sado-masochistic treatments because that's your thing, then there are plenty of massage modalities out there that offer the 'no pain, no gain' treatment. However, if you actually want your massage treatment to relieve, ease, relax and rejuvenate your body, then the next time you go for a massage try what I mentioned above. And if the therapist doesn't get it and just wants to tell you how tight your shoulders are, while trying to press those 'knots' into the floor... (eye-roll), then please book in a Remedial session with us and discover a new way to relax, release and stretch muscle tissue that is holding so much more than you may realise. BOOK HERE.
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