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Health & Fitness

Musings on Chair Massage

The massage therapist performs chair massage on fully clothed clients in a mall or at an event to provide relaxation and muscle pain relief.

Whether you don’t have the time for a full-body massage or you’re uncomfortable with the idea of undressing to receive a massage, a chair massage can be the solution.

It’s a comfortable way to receive the benefits of stress reduction and relief for aching muscles without the awkwardness of removing clothing. If you’ve never had a massage, chair massage is an excellent way to sample it for the first time at little expense.

You may have seen the oddly shaped chairs in a convention exhibit hall or at a chair massage business in a mall or airport. You sit, lean against the chest rest and place your face in the face cradle, giving the massage therapist easy access to your neck, shoulders, back, arms, hands and scalp. The chair is adjusted to fit your body and make you comfortable. The massage session, typically five to 30 minutes, focuses on your areas of greatest tension and discomfort.

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Like full-body massage on a table, chair massage reduces tension, decreases muscle aches, provides headache relief and improves sleep.  It eases muscle tension that contributes to chronic pain. It has the additional benefits of taking less time than table massage, being more affordable and allowing recipients to remain fully clothed, which encourages a feeling of safety.  All those additional benefits help reduce stress.

Because some employers make chair massage on the work premises available as a benefit to employees, it also is known as corporate massage or on-site chair massage. Corporate massage may be paid for in part or entirely by the employer, or may be paid totally by the employee. In the workplace, a brief massage increases employee attentiveness and focus, as well reducing absenteeism on the day scheduled for massage. Like other employee benefits, chair massage contributes to building employee loyalty.

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Savvy vendors offer chair massage services to draw in potential customers at sales meetings and conferences. Long lines form at the chair massage booth in the exhibit hall even when adjacent booths have little business. At the conclusion of each chair massage, the vendor has the opportunity to extoll the virtues of his product or service to the happy conference-goer while the massage therapist moves on to the next person in line.

Have you ever had a chair massage? Please share your experience in the Comments below.

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