4 Ways to mentally relax during your massage

1. Take deep, slow breaths to help your body unwind.

Short Answer: This signals your nervous system to relax, enhances circulation, and helps your muscles release tension more effectively with each exhale.

More details: Breathing can be very valuable in helping you to relax. There are hundreds of breathing exercises to help everything from managing stress, to calming down panic attacks, to helping you fall asleep. Taking slow deep breaths helps to calm down your sympathetic nervous system (SNS) which is your tense, fight-or-flight phase, and it stimulates your parasympathetic nervous system (PNS) which is the body's resting and recovering phase. A few deep breaths during your massage will help allow that PNS to make your massage that much more relaxing and effective.

2. Don’t feel pressured to talk - unless you need it to relax.

Short answer: Silence can give you the ability to focus on how your body feels and let it relax, but sometimes a little bit of talking to vent or release stress can also help you relax. But don’t feel pressured to hold up a conversation if you don’t want to.

More details: This can be a controversial topic among massage therapists. Some prefer to work in complete silence, and there are some modalities or massage styles that require silence for the therapist to focus and execute what they need to. However, sometimes it is difficult to relax if you've just had a long day and need to vent, or some people have no other adults to talk to so they need to talk to get it out so they can relax. Whichever way you need, don't feel pressure to do one or the other. Your massage is your time. Zone out and fall sleep if you want, or vent out your real feelings about your mother-in-law's latest snarky remark.

3. Visualize a peaceful scene, like the ocean or a quiet forest.

Short answer: One way to get your brain to “shut off” is to picture a scene that brings you peace. Many will refer to it as “your happy place”, a place you can relax and be calm. Visualizing such a place during your massage can help clear your mind and help your body relax.

More details: There is a reason we love certain places. They are usually places or situations that take us away from the routine everyday stuff that stresses us out. By taking your mind to your happy place, it helps remove you from the stuff and situations that stress you out, therefore helping to relax the mind while the massage relaxes your body.

4. Trust your therapist.

Short answer: Your massage is an important part of your wellness routine and you want to make sure you are getting exactly what you want out of your appointment, so it may be tempting to try to and control every part of the massage, which actually just tenses you up more. Your therapist is a professional. Trust them to do their job.

More details: Good communication between massage therapist and client is vitally important, but there is a fine line between good communication and a client telling a therapist how to do their job. Many people don't realize how much education and training legitimate, licensed massage therapists have to go through, so they know more than you may realize. Sometimes you may complain about a pain in one area, but the therapist may know or find that the actual source of the pain is somewhere else, and it creates frustration when the client demands that the therapist is working in the wrong spot. There absolutely should be communication as far as 'pressure is too deep', or 'that stretch hurts', but if you did your homework in researching your therapist, they spoke to you about your needs and goals for the appointment, the only thing you need to control is how you let yourself relax. You will never let your body relax if you are analyzing every touch and stroke the therapist does. No therapist wants to create an uncomfortable environment for their clients. Trust them to use their expertise to help you relax.