Massage Oils

Massage chairs are built to perform a wide variety of massage techniques. More expensive chairs will offer a greater range of massage techniques as well as speeds and intensities whereas basic massage chairs will offer fewer options in terms of massage functions. Still, kneading, rolling, and percussion or tapping are some basic functions that are most important and come standard with most chairs.

The rolling technique is a basic way to stretch your back and spine. This loosens up the area for deeper massages to follow. This massage is performed by a large roller in the back rest of the massage chair and works a large area of the back to increase circulation.

Kneading massages feels like two thumbs rubbing both sides of the spine in a circular motion. It lifts and stretches the muscles along the spine and works deeper into the tissue than the rolling massage. The purpose of the kneading massage is to relax the muscles and invigorate the body by transferring tension from acupoints to a broader area. It works in sequence with the roller.

Percussions, otherwise known as tapping, feels like the edge of hands tapping your back muscles in a very fast and rhythmic motion. This is popular in sports medicine as it relieves spinal joints of pressure and works the entire back.

The Shiatsu massage technique feels like fingers applying pressure directly on specific points of the body. This is a deep tissue technique focused on special acupoints that directly correlate to the different organs or glands in the body. The massage function stimulates specific points to reduce stress, increase the energy flow, and to promote overall health throughout the body.

Acupressure is massage of the back that squeezes and releases the muscles along the spine. The technique is designed to soften up and loosen the muscles for deeper massages by pressing the muscles together inward toward the spine and feels like someone using the heel of their hands.

The Swedish technique is a very relaxing technique of pressuring muscles and rubbing them in the direction of blood flow to the heart. It is a combination of other techniques to produce the loosening and relaxing other muscles as well as increasing blood flood. It is what most people would consider a normal massage and has become the standard massage.

One function that massage chairs offer that can’t be duplicated by any human massage therapist is the air massage. This is a feature of some high end chairs that use the inflating and deflating of air bags to squeeze parts of the back, arms, and legs of the user.

Each technique offered by the massage chair serves its own specific purpose and it is up to the consumer to decide what functions are most important. There is a huge selection of brands and models to choose from and pretty much any combination of functions are available.

Chiropractic and massage therapy work very well together. So much so, that it’s not uncommon for Doctors of Chiropractic to employ or lease space to massage therapists in their very own office.

Some people have visited a massage therapist for stress relief or to deal with a persistent and chronic neck or back pain problem. When they didn’t quite get the lasting relief they were looking for, they went to see a chiropractor.

While the chiropractor can work wonders on moving the spine and returning it’s normal function, some patients end up missing their regular massages. They begin to think that they are “cheating” on their chiropractor and get nervous about whether or not they should even mention their visits.

Your chiropractor will usually be very happy you are seeing a massage therapist (depending on your condition). While the chiropractor adjusts the spine to affect the nerves and the surrounding soft tissues (including the muscles), they may not be able to spend the half hour or an hour that you may need to really get our muscles relaxed.

Having a professional massage your and relax any muscle tightness and spasm will help the chiropractor’s ability to give you a more relaxed, pain-free spinal adjustment. The more tense the muscles are when the doctor administers the adjustment, the less comfortable it can be.

From a long term stand point, the Doctor of Chiropractic is also happy to have the improved blood flow and relaxed muscles too. While the doctor moves the bones, it’s ultimately the muscles that will end up maintaining the bones in their proper place.

If you typically spend all day sitting at the computer and your muscles tend to get very tense (like most of us), it makes sense that you’ll benefit from regular massages. Your chiropractor will not object to this in most cases. Where some people experience problems is when they have a herniated disc, or other condition that involves a lot of inflammation.

When your muscles are very inflamed, a deep tissue massage may tend to increase the inflammation, making things temporarily more painful. When the muscles are more painful, they are more difficult to work with and can keep the chiropractor from being able to work on your spine to the degree that they would prefer.

Talk over any treatments that you are considering or currently doing with any health care provider. Many are okay, and don’t think you’re “cheating” on anyone.

Being a Massage Therapist in a very busy city like Calgary for the past 11 years, I have spent many hours deep into the tissues of thousands of clients. Over 15 000 sessions have led to many realizations and understandings about how the body carries tension, how it becomes posturally distorted, and what tends to keep the musculoskeletal system from finding a state of balance that allows for movement free of pain and restriction.

There are a multitude of factors that lead to pain and discomfort. One of the biggest and most managed causes is stress. It affects all of us. We deal with it, adapt to it, and try to avoid it! Stress in all its forms finds its way into our lives from countless sources. I start with stress, because of its compounding affect on everything else. All things contributing to postural stain are only made worse by stress.

Our predominate postures greatly affect how we feel, move, and cope with life. The greatest determinate of our posture, is our most habitual postures. This may sound vague, so let me zero in on the three habitual patterns which have the most impact on our postural reality.

Nothing in life is done more than standing, sitting, and sleeping!

Your unique way of doing each of these things, has the greatest impact on what your postural reality is. The accidents, sports injuries, broken limbs, nor your genetics are nearly as impactful as the three things you spend the most time doing. Is there an hour in the day that you are not doing one of those three things? How do you sit throughout the day? How do you stand? What body position is held most throughout the sleeping hours each night?

Many of my massage therapy clients have office jobs that require them to maintain a seated position anywhere from 4-8 hours every day! This may not appear to be significant, but lets look a little closer. Lets take the lesser of the two and do some basic math: 4 hours a day, 20 hours a week, and 80 hours a month, equals over 900 hours a year holding a seated position. Of course, that’s only at work! There is the time spent seated in the car, on the couch, at the kitchen table, or at the coffee shop. Obviously we could double that 900 hours a year and still not account for all the time spent in this posturally challenging position!

Two major muscle groups are held in a shortened position while you sit. The major hip flexors, the Psoas, and Rectus Femoris, are greatly shortened while seated. The former of the two attaches to the anterior (front) side of your lumbar vertebrae. After spending long periods of time in a shortened position, the Psoas becomes shorter and tighter. The problem with the hip flexors being tight is that they pull the lumbar vertebrae forward. This is a classic reason why many people experience low back pain.

Having your knees bent at 90 degrees, for countless yearly hours of sitting, also tends to lead to incredibly tight hamstrings! No wonder as we age it gets to harder to touch our toes! Sitting is also hardly kind to our neck and shoulders.

Massage Therapists’ work on a host of issues their clients present with, which arise from spending hours on a mouse and keyboard. Hours spent with their heads drifting forward towards their monitors, shift the weight of the head to neck and shoulder muscles that are made to perform movements rather than support a near 10lbs bowling ball! Other habitual patterns such as leaning on one butt cheek more than the other, pinning a phone to the ear with the shoulder, and being far from ambidextrous with the mouse, highlight the many reasons why sitting contributes to many of the postural imbalances which massage therapy address nearly everyday.

Another posture we do more than any other is standing. Each of us have a very unique standing posture. We rarely bring our conscious awareness to how we do this simple thing, but we can clearly identify some habitual aspects to how we maintain this dominantly held posture.

Simply glancing down at your feet periodically, without adjusting yourself to some ideal pose, reveals what is likely a reoccurring theme. Are your feet consistently in a similar position every time you look down? Is one always out in front? Is one always rotated in the same direction? These consistencies reveal muscular holding patterns that are having their way with your skeletal structure. You may notice the bodies desire to shift weight more to one side. This too relates to certain muscle being held in more contracted states, than their opposites. Massage therapy looks to reveal the imbalances within our muscle groups and restore it.

Our musculature is a perfect design. Every muscle works in concert with it’s opposite, to grant us fluid, painless, dynamic movement and function. While one muscle is extending, its opposite is flexing. Our bodies are functioning optimally when our muscles are balanced in strength, length, and flexibility.

Massage therapy practitioners help reveal postural distortions and the habitual patterns contributing to these distortions and introduce opposition to the habitual posture. Once you discover the habitual postures and their opposites, it becomes easier to find the balance. It is here where freedom from postural strain can be discovered. Contrary to assumptions, sleep is not always an escape to postural strain.

Have you aver tried switching sides of the bed? Your partner not too interested? Likely you haven’t been too interested either! Why? We are habitual creatures. We move in habitual ways and do habitual things. We also sleep in very habitual patterns. Some people sleep on their stomachs. Their head tends to be rotated and laterally flexed for many hours a night.

So you may think side sleeping is better. Maybe. If you tend to be predominately on one side, the shoulder against the mattress is definitely being held differently than the other. What position are your legs in? Is one relatively straight, while the other is bent at the hip and knee? Did I mention 6-8 hours is a typical sleep? How will your long held, habitual sleeping position, affect your proper anatomical standing position? Our body adopts its own sense, of normal standing posture, under great influence of what the body wants to do. Invariably, the body wants to move into the position it spends the most time in. Your every instinct, understanding, and programmed sense of what normal standing is, is challenged by the postures that we hold for longer periods than any other. The result is postural strain.

Massage therapy focuses intently on those muscles holding you in out-of-balance postures. Once these muscles are released of tension, your body enjoys the experience of a more fluid and pain-free range of motion. If you can move daily into positions and ranges which oppose your habitual patterns, you are encouraging a state of balance. With a little help from your massage therapist, you will discover more about your body and how your habitual postures become your unconscious postures. Through the massage therapy process you will encounter new postures thereby helping to bring conscious awareness and balance to your body.

A massage chair is a big purchase for most people. This means is that we want to be prepared to make the best decision possible when we hit the show room. If there is nothing else that matters, we are buying a massage chair for two reasons. One is for the massage functions, since it is called a massage chair, and second we differentiate the chairs by the level of comfort.

Massage chairs have built in rollers, nodes, and air bags that try to emulate the hands and fingers of a massage therapist. When you are at the store trying the chairs out, notice the different massage functions as well as the intensity of the massage.

More expensive chairs will offer a wider range of adjustable intensities and speeds but all chairs should offer at least some adjustments. One way most basic chairs will allow you to adjust intensities is by adding or removing the cushions.

Inanimate comfort of the massage chair is really about supporting and filling the contours of your body. It comes down to size, and density of the chair. Removable cushions give users flexibility when it comes to density. You can add more cushions if you prefer to lounge on something soft or, if you need more support, remove cushions if you want your chair to be more firm with less support in specific areas of the body.

How comfortable the massage feels depends on how well the rollers and nodes fit to the body of the user. Rollers in the backrest start at the top and roll downward. For some people of smaller stature, the starting point in the backrest could be too high and start at the persons head so adjustments need to be made to the settings to start the roller at a lower level. Some high end chairs are able to recognize the size of the person in the chair and automatically make adjustments to the massage.

Other chairs will let you choose the sequence of massages and save settings that you like best to be performed the next time you hop on. Some chairs work areas other than the back like the arms, hips, legs and feet using air bags that inflate and deflate.

In many cases, the buyer intends to share the chair with his family or some member of the household who will also use the chair on a regular basis. In such a case, it is better to pay a little extra for the added flexibility of adjustments so everyone who uses the chair can pick the settings they find most comfortable.

Since it a big chair, and you can find one that is of extreme comfort to you it makes sense that many people use the chair to double up as lounge chairs when not in use. It is great to relax in and something to look forward to at the end of the day.

Chiropractic and massage therapy work very well together. So much so, that it’s not uncommon for Doctors of Chiropractic to employ or lease space to massage therapists in their very own office.

Some people have visited a massage therapist for stress relief or to deal with a persistent and chronic neck or back pain problem. When they didn’t quite get the lasting relief they were looking for, they went to see a chiropractor.

While the chiropractor can work wonders on moving the spine and returning it’s normal function, some patients end up missing their regular massages. They begin to think that they are “cheating” on their chiropractor and get nervous about whether or not they should even mention their visits.

Your chiropractor will usually be very happy you are seeing a massage therapist (depending on your condition). While the chiropractor adjusts the spine to affect the nerves and the surrounding soft tissues (including the muscles), they may not be able to spend the half hour or an hour that you may need to really get our muscles relaxed.

Having a professional massage your and relax any muscle tightness and spasm will help the chiropractor’s ability to give you a more relaxed, pain-free spinal adjustment. The more tense the muscles are when the doctor administers the adjustment, the less comfortable it can be.

From a long term stand point, the Doctor of Chiropractic is also happy to have the improved blood flow and relaxed muscles too. While the doctor moves the bones, it’s ultimately the muscles that will end up maintaining the bones in their proper place.

If you typically spend all day sitting at the computer and your muscles tend to get very tense (like most of us), it makes sense that you’ll benefit from regular massages. Your chiropractor will not object to this in most cases. Where some people experience problems is when they have a herniated disc, or other condition that involves a lot of inflammation.

When your muscles are very inflamed, a deep tissue massage may tend to increase the inflammation, making things temporarily more painful. When the muscles are more painful, they are more difficult to work with and can keep the chiropractor from being able to work on your spine to the degree that they would prefer.

Talk over any treatments that you are considering or currently doing with any health care provider. Many are okay, and don’t think you’re “cheating” on anyone.

Chiropractic and massage therapy work very well together. So much so, that it’s not uncommon for Doctors of Chiropractic to employ or lease space to massage therapists in their very own office.

Some people have visited a massage therapist for stress relief or to deal with a persistent and chronic neck or back pain problem. When they didn’t quite get the lasting relief they were looking for, they went to see a chiropractor.

While the chiropractor can work wonders on moving the spine and returning it’s normal function, some patients end up missing their regular massages. They begin to think that they are “cheating” on their chiropractor and get nervous about whether or not they should even mention their visits.

Your chiropractor will usually be very happy you are seeing a massage therapist (depending on your condition). While the chiropractor adjusts the spine to affect the nerves and the surrounding soft tissues (including the muscles), they may not be able to spend the half hour or an hour that you may need to really get our muscles relaxed.

Having a professional massage your and relax any muscle tightness and spasm will help the chiropractor’s ability to give you a more relaxed, pain-free spinal adjustment. The more tense the muscles are when the doctor administers the adjustment, the less comfortable it can be.

From a long term stand point, the Doctor of Chiropractic is also happy to have the improved blood flow and relaxed muscles too. While the doctor moves the bones, it’s ultimately the muscles that will end up maintaining the bones in their proper place.

If you typically spend all day sitting at the computer and your muscles tend to get very tense (like most of us), it makes sense that you’ll benefit from regular massages. Your chiropractor will not object to this in most cases. Where some people experience problems is when they have a herniated disc, or other condition that involves a lot of inflammation.

When your muscles are very inflamed, a deep tissue massage may tend to increase the inflammation, making things temporarily more painful. When the muscles are more painful, they are more difficult to work with and can keep the chiropractor from being able to work on your spine to the degree that they would prefer.

Talk over any treatments that you are considering or currently doing with any health care provider. Many are okay, and don’t think you’re “cheating” on anyone.

Looking to buy a massage chair requires more than visiting a shop and sitting in a bunch of different chairs. To make to most of your trip, it is a good idea to familiarize yourself with the key components to look for in a new massage chair. Knowing your needs as well as restrictions, such as budget, is also a good idea.

The main considerations are massage functions, the material the upholstery is made of, and the asthetics of the massage chair. There are also some less obvious features that you can not notice during the trial visit to the shop so it is good to know some key specifications to look for when reading descriptions of the different chairs.

Most chairs come with rolling, kneading, tapping and percussions. These are the most important massage functions built into every massage chair of every price range. More expensive chairs offer an extension to these functions as well as the option to combine functions to be performed at the same time or in specific sequences.

There are also variations in speed and intensity that add to the combination functionality in more expensive chairs. Higher end chairs will offer a wider range of speeds and intensity while some of the more basic budget models will offer a very small range or just a single speed or intensity.

Massage chairs come upholstered a variety of materials. Leathermatch and premium leather upholstered chairs will come with higher prices while more basic materials like fabric and microfiber won’t carry quite the same premium. Some manufacturers will distinguish their models of chairs based on the upholstery or small accents within the physical design, such as partial wooden bases.

The physical design can be a deal breaker for some people looking for a chair that fits the dcor of their home or office. This can be something as simple as the color selection of the chairs or the contours and shape of the chair. If the aesthetics just aren’t right, some chairs have a pair of wheels so it can be tilted and rolled to a storage place and out of sight.

But there is an even more important factor in play with physical design and that is the comfort the chair provides. A chair with puffy looking cushions can deceive you into thinking it is more comfortable to lounge in than it really might be. Some chairs are designed with removable layers of padding so you can adjust it to the right level of comfort.

In the end, the most important factor in buying a chair is finding the most comfortable massage chair. After all the differences, remember that what you’re looking for is something to relax in. Make it something you look forward to at the end of the day.

The biggest thing that those who train to be massage therapists face when they are close to completing their training is if they will actually be able to find a good massage therapy job after graduating.

There numerous types of massage therapy jobs available, from working in a massage studio, to working in a day spa or salon or working in a medical setting such as in a hospital, doctor’s, physical therapy or chiropractor’s office. It also depends on where you live as you mind find jobs in hotels, at resorts or on cruise liners which you can apply for.

The best way of finding out what kinds of jobs are available in the area where you live is to talk to other massage therapists. But do not just limit yourself to those who are connected to the school that you attend, but other massage therapists who run businesses in your area as well. If you can talk to several different ones located in the town where you live along with those who work in different massage therapy jobs.

As you look for a massage therapists job you may discover that you have to factor in travelling as you may find that there is a higher demand for people who have trained as massage therapists in one part of the town compared to another. Also you may find it much easier to get a position working in a health spa as a massage therapist than you would say working for a doctor or hospital.

Also remember that every one of those massage therapists that you talk to will have started out just like you. In most cases you will find that many of them will be willing to take time out in order to answer some or all of your questions for you. You may even find some who can provide you with specific advice or provide you with a lead for a job that you can apply for.

If you know where it is that you want to work as a massage therapist then make some calls to that place. As well as talking to the person in charge of hiring staff also if you can speak to some of the therapists who already work there. Find out from them where their training took place and what they like and dislike about the job they are currently doing. Although from the clients point of view the job may seem perfect for the person doing it this may not be the case.

Most massage therapy schools will have programs in place to help their graduates find a massage therapy job after they graduate. Schools that have built a good reputation in the community often have companies asking them for graduates to hire right out of school. If you haven’t already chosen a school to attend for your training, be sure to take each school’s job assistance programs into consideration before you choose a school.

As long as you keep the above in mind then finding your ideal massage therapy job should be much easier than you would have imagined. Just remember to take your time and weigh up the pros and cons for each one carefully.

Most of us are put off by the inaccessibility of a regular massage. Usually, discounting exceptions, you have to plan ahead for a massage. You phone in for an appointment. If you’re lucky you will get the appointment for the day and time that you want. Otherwise, you will have to adjust your schedule to match the appointment set by the massage therapist. If that can’t be done, then tough luck! You don’t get a massage. Or you have to repeat the whole exercise with another massage parlor. The chair massage (aka the on-site massage) is the ideal alternative for such of us who cannot seem to set aside the time to visit a regular massage parlor. It is a partial body massage. A chair massage is a service provided at or near many places with heavy visitor traffic, like shopping malls and corporate offices. It has gained favor with harried executives and busy housewives alike. Nothing better than a chair massage after all that heavy shopping!

As the name suggests this form of massage can be given anywhere. You don’t need to remove your clothes, and so it can be given in full public view. Chair massage services abound in large corporate offices. A typical chair massage takes about half an hour, but a “quick” massage can be done in about five minutes!

Chair massage service providers usually set up shop at sites which are heavily frequented by office goers, or by shoppers, or people seeking entertainment. They usually operate in the open or from temporary kiosks and stalls. The service is based on the ’spontaneity’ of the opportunity – the right place, the right time, the right mood. Of these, the right ‘place’ is the operative word. It’s right there, where you are! You don’t have to go to the mountain…!

Chair massage therapists are commonly found in shopping malls and arcades. Some set up shop near stores selling health or natural foods. Spas, health and fitness institutes, gyms, dance schools are other places where you can find chair massage services being offered to the visiting clientele. If you do not go anywhere near the places just mentioned, then do what most people do – they call the chair massage therapist to their office!

The chair massage service is gaining popularity for another reason as well: plain and simple shyness. Some people have a problem with going au natural in front of a masseur. Some have a problem with getting touched, on their bare body, by the masseur. They understand that this all absolutely reputable, and that the masseur is doing a thoroughly professional job, very much like a medical practitioner. Yet there are those who fight shy of disrobing for a massage. A chair massage avoids all these issues. You don’t have to take off a thing except maybe your footwear if you’re getting your feet massaged. The masseur doesn’t touch your bare body except those which are already exposed. So those people who were chary of getting a full body massage for this reason, are now lining up for a chair massage.

It is not out of place to mention here that the cost of a chair massage is much, much less than that of a salon massage. The chair massage provider does not have the high overheads that a salon massage provider incurs in running the massage service. Besides, the time spent per person is much less in a chair massage than in a salon massage. Hence the chair massage works out to be very affordable by everyone, and you can indulge in one much oftener than a salon massage.

Work-related stress is more common today than it ever was before and the way things are going, it is only going to increase. The convenience of the chair massage gives it a big advantage over the regular salon massage as a wonderful, therapeutic and effective way to relieve yourself of all your stress. Do yourself a favor, get a chair massage now. All you have to do is stop by the next chair massage kiosk on your way to the car park.

Modern life is causing stress to reach epidemic proportions. So the benefits of massage therapy and helping to relieve stress simply cannot be ignored. Today more and more people are suffering from headaches, muscular problems and chronic pain caused by the stress that they are placing their bodies under. So under going a regular massage can help to alleviate these problems and can prevent them from becoming much worse or occurring later on in life.

In order to get the full benefits of massage therapy you will need to find a massage therapist who fits your needs perfectly. Finding the right massage therapist that you like and trust can take some time. You should be looking for someone who is not only well trained, but who is friendly as well as being professional. A good one will be able to fully explain all the benefits to be gained from massage therapy. Some of these, which you may not be in fact, be aware of.

Although massage therapy can help a person to unwind and cope with the stresses of modern living. It can also be used to help deal with a variety of different health problems that modern living is causing.

Certainly, for those who suffer from chronic pain conditions, arthritis and migraines there are many benefits to be had from regular massage therapy. A good well-trained massage therapist will help these people to provide them with relief from the pain that these conditions place them under.

As well as treating conditions mentioned above massage, therapy can help to treat and alleviate problems in people suffering from depression or anxiety. They find the relaxing atmosphere of the massage room extremely beneficial. They find the warmth of the bed along with the smells that they find comforting and the gentle reassuring touch of the massage therapist makes the feel safe and secure and is something, which is lacking from their lives.

A lot of the time, we find it very difficult to actually make time in our lives just to stop and relax and forget about what the world is placing on us. So now more and more people are turning to massage therapy as a way of allowing them to do this. Yet although it can help us all with stress levels those who suffer from anxiety and depression find that massage therapy when used in conjunction with more traditional medical treatments helps them even more.

Massage therapy is also extremely beneficial to women who suffer from PMS especially if they have sessions of treatment on a regular basis. As well as reducing the amount of tension they feel, it also helps to alleviate the cramping and irritability that they feel and has also been found to be beneficial in reducing retention of water in the body.

In fact what you will be astounded to find out is that just about anybody can enjoy many of the benefits of massage therapy. Many people are surprised at how much it helps not only to relieve the stress they are feeling but also dealing with other health problems as well.