Beneficial Relaxation and Wellness Massage Options
Improve the quality of life by focusing on health and wellness. By sparing some time to get a massage while relaxing, you can achieve both. Come to Merci Soothing Touch Massage & Bodywork LLC in Hackensack, New Jersey, and explore more options.
Sports Massage
Sports massage involves soft tissue manipulation to ensure an athlete’s health and well-being. The main goal is to enhance performance.
Doing so optimizes performance factors, decreases injury, and supports soft tissue healing. The active and passive engagement of the muscle stimulates the brain, which translates to positive outcomes for the athlete in the following aspects:
- Understanding an Athlete’s Sport
- Ability to Interact and Support Athletes
- Identifying the Muscles
- Involved, and Their Action
- Understanding Sports-Related Injuries
- Recovery-Uninjured
- Post-Workout or Competition
- Remedial-Minor to Moderate Injuries
- Severe-Injury Rehabilitation
- Post-Surgery Rehabilitation
The Benefits of Sports Massage
- Improves Fluid Circulation
- Increases Muscular Relaxation
- Enables General Relaxation
- Separates Muscle Fibers and Connective Tissue
- Formation of Healthy Scar Tissue
- Normalizes Connective Tissue
- Increases Mental Alertness and Clarity
Trigger Point Therapy
Commonly referred to as muscular "knots," trigger points are taught bands/nodules in musculature responsible for pain.
A dysfunctional muscle containing trigger points will remain in a fixed shortened position, often one that results in the local reduction of blood flow, lymph drainage, and range of motion.
Commonly used by athletes, trigger point release aids training by decreasing recovery time, diminishing muscle soreness, and preventing injury.
Whether due to physical overuse, sports injury, trauma, or improper posture, trigger points are a very common root cause of many pain patterns, including:
- Back/Neck/Shoulder Pain
- Tennis/Golf Elbow
- Carpal Tunnel Syndrome
- TMJ Pain
- Headaches/Migraines
- Knee/Foot/Ankle Pain
Hot Stone Massage
Our signature massage is enhanced with the use of smooth, warm stones which are rolled along tension areas to ease and relax muscles to enable deep relaxation.
Swedish Style Massage
Swedish massage is the most common and best-known type of massage. It involves long, fluid strokes of muscles and tissues with pressure that varies from light to medium to firm. This type of massage is considered one of the most relaxing styles.
Your massage therapists will adjust the pressure according to your sensitivity and preference.
Chair Massage
Onsite, chair massages are done while you're seated fully clothed in a portable, specially designed chair. This usually involves massages on the neck, shoulders, back, arms, and hands.
Reflexology
Based on ancient tradition, pressure is applied to specific points of the feet to relieve tension throughout the entire body while improving circulation. This helps relieve toe or ankle pain, plantar fasciitis, and common forms of arthritis.
Reflexology also decreases stress and anxiety in the entire body. In addition, a variety of stretches can be beneficial.
Considering pain and sensitivity in the foot, heel, and calf areas, be sure to communicate your pain levels with your massage therapist during treatment.
Myofascial Release
Myofascial release is a very effective hands-on technique that provides sustained pressure into myofascial restrictions to eliminate pain and restore motion.
Fascia is a densely woven covering that surrounds every muscle, bone, nerve, artery, and vein as well as all of our internal organs including the heart, lungs, brain, and spinal cord.
The most interesting aspect of the fascial system is that it is not just a system of separate coverings. It is one structure that exists from head to foot without interruption.
This way, you can begin to see that each part of the entire body is connected to every other part by the fascia, like the yarn in a sweater.
In the normal healthy state, the fascia is relaxed and wavy in configuration. It can stretch and move without restriction. When we experience physical trauma, scarring, or inflammation, however, the fascia loses its pliability.
It becomes tight, restricted, and a source of tension to the rest of the body. Trauma, such as a fall, whiplash, surgery, or just habitual poor posture over time and repetitive stress injuries has cumulative effects.
The changes they cause in the fascial system influence comfort and the functioning of our body.
Acupressure
A therapy developed over 5,000 years ago as an important aspect of Asia, especially Chinese, medicine, acupressure uses precise finger placement and pressure over specific points along the body.
These points follow specific channels, known as meridians or the same channels used in acupuncture.
According to Asian medical philosophy, activation of these points with pressure (or needles) can improve blood flow, release tension, and enhance or unblock life energy, known in China as "qi" or in the English-speaking world as "chi."
This release allows energy to flow more freely through the meridians, promoting relaxation, healing, and the restoration of proper function.
Acupressure therapy can be used to relieve pain, reduce tension in muscles, improve circulation and promote deep states of relaxation.
Individuals can be treated, and then trained in various self-care applications and pressure-point formulas for specific conditions.
These include nausea and vomiting, motion sickness, headaches, neck and back pain, as well as chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, mental and emotional stress, even addiction recovery, and learning disorders.
Acupressure massage therapy can also be used to treat larger issues. Specific acupressure treatments have been devised for issues such as these techniques entail the stimulation of key points on the hands and legs.
The concept of acupressure focuses on the key energy points responsible for muscle
pain anywhere in the body. Even if the pain is not exactly at the energy point, stimulating it can provide relief.
Acupressure therapy can be used to cure the following issues in the human body:
- Backache
- Headache
- Neck Pain
- Arthritis Pain
- Excess Stress
- Muscle Pain
- Anxiety
Deep-Tissue Massage
Deep tissue massage, is a deeper, more intense massage. This technique uses slow, deep guided strokes and firm pressure designed to relieve severe tension and reach below the superficial muscles.
Deep tissue massage is often recommended for individuals experiencing consistent pain and soreness in both large and small muscle groups.
Prenatal Massage
Prenatal massage shares many of the goals of regular massage: to relax tense muscles, ease sore spots, improve circulation and mobility, and just make you feel good.
It’s also tailored specifically to the needs of pregnant women and their changing bodies. Therapists trained in prenatal massage adjust their techniques accordingly. The therapeutic benefits of massage for pregnant women haven't been studied very much.
There's evidence that massage may help people suffering from low back pain and possibly those with chronic headaches. These studies, however, weren't done with pregnant women.
In any case, massage may decrease stress and promote relaxation, helping you cope with discomfort even if it doesn't specifically alleviate or prevent it.
Shiatsu
Shiatsu is a form of massage that originated in Japan and traditional Chinese medicine and has been widely practiced around the world since the 1970s.
Shiatsu means "finger pressure," which describes the technique. In shiatsu therapy, pressure with thumbs, hands, elbows, knees, or feet is applied to pressure points on the body.
This form of massage also focuses on rotating and stretching limbs, joints, and pressure points, or meridians, as they’re called in traditional Chinese medicine.
The theory behind shiatsu is that our bodies are made up of energy, called qi, and that energy gets blocked and causes suffering.
Shiatsu massage helps remove the blockages by realigning meridian points, which balances the qi and eases the body and mind. When one balances qi or vital energy, healing occurs in the body.
The nervous and immune systems are both stimulated by applying pressure to the meridians, providing relief for both body and mind. Shiatsu also restores the circulatory system, improving blood flow throughout the body.
The body has twelve meridians, named according to their corresponding organ: lung, large intestine, stomach, spleen, heart, small intestine, bladder, kidney, heart governor, triple heater, gall bladder, and liver.
The functions of these organs have a broader definition in Eastern medicine. Shiatsu massage has many benefits for the body and mind. Here is a list of some of those benefits:
- Restore and maintain the body’s energy, especially helpful to those suffering from fatigue and overall weakness
- Improves circulation
- Reduces stress and tension as well as anxiety and depression
- Relief from headaches
- Promotes healing from sprains and similar injuries
- Helps bring relief to arthritis sufferers
- Reduces problems with stiff neck and shoulders as well as backaches (including sciatica)
- Coughs, colds, and other sinus and respiratory problems
- Helps those dealing with insomnia
- Aids in the treatment of such various things as digestive disorders, bowel trouble, morning sickness, and menstrual problem
Thai Massage
Traditional Thai yoga massage provides benefits by stimulating pressure points to open the body's energy pathways, allowing healing energy to flow freely and allowing the body to heal itself.
Thai yoga massage works in a similar way to practicing yoga poses. As participants hold a pose, blood slows to targeted areas. When the yogi releases the pose, fresh circulation rushes back into the area.
Traditional Thai massage is a deep, full-body treatment, starting at the feet and progressing up to the head applying pressure on the “sen lines”.
It is the combination of yoga stretching, calmness of meditation, acupressure, and reflexology that makes it such an amazing healing art. The Thai method uses mainly point pressure and muscle stretching.
Some of the innumerable physical, mental, and psychological benefits include:
- Improved posture and balance
- Corrected body alignments
- Dissolved energy blockages
- Helps tone the body
- Strengthened joints
- Fights diseases and chronic joint problems
- Good for muscle relaxation
- Increased muscular flexibility
- Increased mobility
Aromatherapy Massage
Aromatic essential oils are combined with our European body massage to balance, harmonize and promote the health of the body, mind, and spirit.
Schedule Your Spa Visit
Let us know the spa services you’d like to have. We’re eager to set you up for an appointment with any of our massage therapists.