How Often Should You Be Getting a Massage? The Experts Weigh In

I hold everything—stress, emotion, fatigue—in my body. While my chilled-out attitude is very much real, I do struggle with the emotional toll of masking (hello, fellow social introverts) and general stress, both work and personal. My body often “feels” my emotions before I do. Chalk this up to being an Aquarius or being an overachiever—your guess is as good as mine. But body aches, back pain, stress in the shoulders, headaches…it’s all there and intermittently throughout the month alerting me, “Hey, something may not be right,” before my brain does.

We all carry stress, emotion, and even trauma in our bodies, and that can really impact how they move, regulate, and feel. According to the American Psychological Association, stress affects everything from our cardiovascular to our gastrointestinal to our reproductive systems. That has been highlighted even more these past few years as a focus on releasing trauma through body work (and, in particular, the hips) gains popularity thanks to more research and best-selling books like The Body Keeps the Score.

“Massage is a lot like exercise in how it helps to relieve stress in the body and mind,” says LA-based massage therapist and health educator Malisa Mendez, certified massage therapist (CMT) and neuromuscular massage therapist (NMT). “It’s one of the best ways to help your body release hormones and neurotransmitters like endorphins, serotonin, and oxytocin that speed up healing, promote relaxation, stimulate contentment, lower blood pressure, strengthen social ties, and reduce inflammation. When our bodies feel good, we function better, physically and mentally.”

And yet I’d never had a massage until I was given one as a gift in my 20s. I was initially tentative to try but soon learned that massages are—or at least, can be—blissful. After that first massage, I’d have them occasionally, often as gifts or as a way to test new beauty products, and would feel immense relief. But I never considered getting them routinely, mostly because good massages can be expensive. And when I was stress-free (or rather, stress-minimized), it wasn’t top of mind. Why buy something before you need it?

That changed after I moved to LA from New York. Not only was I dealing with a new life transition that entailed finding a place to live, settling in, and making new friends, but I was also faced with other stressors that naturally come with age—like my aging parents, my retirement accounts, and generally getting my life in order. I had big budgeting goals and even bigger money needs, and I was making a decent wage but nothing that screamed “You’re going to make it after all.” It was during this mindset that I found myself at The Now, a massage business that’s kind of the Dry Bar of massages, with locations all over Los Angeles. I was there thanks to a brand launch that involved treating editors to a massage. And as with most massages, I felt great after. My mind was set, my body relaxed, and I felt like I could finally take a deep breath—a feeling I hadn’t had in a while.