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I am a massage therapist and
one of the massage FAQ most of my clients in
Singapore ask me whenever I meet them is “How often
should I get a massage?” Before I answer them, I do
consider several factors which may vary with
individual client. Here are some of the factors that
I consider and the specific answer:
What is the purpose of the
massage?
Is it for relaxation or for treatment? If the
massage is for relaxation, then it doesn’t have to
be more frequent. It is not a must to be more than
once unless you have all the time and the finances
for the massage. If it is for a specific treatment,
it has to be frequent depending on the state of the
specific tissues to be treated.
What is the state of the
tissue?
If your tissue is very hard or dense, chronic
and long standing, then you will need several
massage treatments over few weeks so as to make the
progress. If your tissues are inflamed from an
injury, then you will require Manual Lymph Drainage
rather than massage alone. For such conditions, you
will require frequent massages so as to facilitate
the elimination of the metabolic wastes from the
injured tissues and thus relieve the pain and
congestion.
How are you feeling after a
series of treatments?
I normally use about 3 treatments as my reference so
as to know if I am doing the right thing or not.
Even for the chronic issues, the patient should feel
some changes. If the situation persists, then I
should do the massage more frequent than before so
as to improve the situation. However, if there are
some improvements, then I will keep reducing the
number of times per week.
For the case of a massage for
treating chronic conditions such as the back pains
or severe headaches, you will require 1 hour two
times a week for about three treatments. Thereafter,
you will try once weekly for between three to four
weeks. After that, you can reduce to once in two
weeks for two treatments. You can then control it
beyond this point depending on how you feel.
For relaxation purposes, I
would recommend a massage for one hour once in a
month unless you want it more often for your own
relaxation satisfaction. For those with chronic
injuries, I recommend more treatments within a
shorter duration so as to help relieve the
congestion and the pains in the affected area. After
sometime, you should consider switching to deeper
and muscular work/exercises for a prolonged period
of time.
Responds to massage treatments
vary with individuals. There are those who will feel
better after the first treatment. For such cases,
the frequency of the treatments should be reduced
unless you still want to continue for your own
satisfaction. However, there are those patients who
can extend to the fourth treatment without any
improvement. For such cases, the frequency of the
massage should be increased and after sometime, they
do respond to treatment. Therefore, those going to
be massaged for treatment purposes should study
their feelings after every massage and report to the
therapist so as to be advised on how frequent he/she
should be massaged.
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