Massage helps you feel better. It gets the blood flowing faster and soothes sore muscles. While some people may experience mild muscle awareness as the muscle fibers and nerves readjust to the work done, which is completely natural, most people will just experience an incomparable feeling of relaxation and wellbeing. Every fiber of your body is relaxed, your aches and pains subside and your brain knows it.
Here are some tips to help make the effects of massage last longer and prolong these good feelings:
- Drinking plenty of water during the 24 hours following your massage session. Hydration helps you lots of ways, but, specifically, it helps increase the expulsion of toxins from your system released by the bodywork.
- Limit your alcohol and caffeine intake for 48 hours. Those fluids actually cause your body to dehydrate.
- Take ten minutes the night of your massage to sit or lay quietly and allow your muscles to remember their relaxed positions. Take a few deep breaths and close your eyes. Try to clear your mind and give yourself time to think about nothing, for a change. Concentrate on avoiding or balancing out stresses in your life.
- Focus on a more purposeful life. Easy things like speaking a little more carefully. Drive a little more slowly. Talk to someone who listens. Do something ahead of time instead of procrastinating. All these reduce natural stresses.
- Eat something good. A balanced higher carbohydrate meal can help muscle healing and recovery. Stay away from “comfort foods”, like friend things and desserts, for at least 24 hours.
Finally, schedule a couple of massage sessions a month, either alone or with a friend, partner or spouse. If you’re concentrating on living right and being well, regular moments of relaxation and bodywork can help you keep on track. You will feel better and that will make you happier. That makes the people around you happy, too!
