Soma Massage Blog

Massage For Election Anxiety

We’re not here to tell you who to vote for.  However….

This election has proven to be particularly stressful for many Americans, and chronic stress has been proven time and time again to have an adverse effect on one’s health.  Your immune system, your circulatory system, even the neurons in your brain can be damaged from long term exposure to stress and anxiety.  This response that was meant to keep us alive in the wilderness is now wreaking havoc on us in the modern world, and when you’re bombarded in every news cycle by talk from each side meant to ramp up your heart rate its hard not to be adversely affected.

But it’s not too late.

You can be proactive about lowering your stress levels.  Actions you can take include:

1. Listening to music.
2. Taking a walk.
3. Exercising.
4. Deep breathing (or mediation if you want to get fancy).
5. A hot bath.
6. Or, of course, GET A MASSAGE!!!!

Even getting a short, fifteen minute massage has been proven to lower levels of stress hormones in somebody’s bloodstream, lower their heart rate and increase their sense of calmness.  If you have a qualified massage therapist working on you (such as one who graduated from Soma) the simple act of healthy touch can release a deluge of happy reward hormones and neurotransmitters in your brain and throughout your body resulting in something medical experts are calling “being totally chill.”

Worried about where the country is headed?  Wishing your Facebook feed would go back to being videos of kittens acting like they’re not kittens?

Relax.  Take a deep breath.  And book a massage! (Which you can do in our clinics here!)

 

What Brought These Students To Massage (part 3)

MICHAEL

What did you do before Soma?

I worked in food service at a university and then at the Chicago Botanic Garden.

What brought you to massage in general, and to Soma specifically?

After massaging friends and family and realizing the impact touch could have even from untrained hands I wanted to see what I could do with trained hands.  Soma has a good looking school and I had personal reasons for wanting to be in Chicago.

Do you like having classes in downtown Chicago?

I love it!  I would not change a single thing about where it is located.

Who are your biggest influences?

Beyonce, her drive and influence inspire me to reach new heights.  My best friend’s mom, she was the type of person I always try to emulate and work towards.

Anything else you want to add?

Massage is great.  Having all this clinical education is going to be helpful even if I never work in a clinical setting.

 

What Brought These Students To Massage (part 2)

ALLYNE

What did you do before Soma?

I am a licensed cosmetologist.  I work at a hair salon for children.

What brought you to massage in general, and to Soma specifically?

I love working with my hands.  I like helping people.  Massage seemed like the best way to go.  I chose Soma because I loved the walk through visit.

Do you like having classes in downtown Chicago?

Yes, I love the location of Soma.  I get to explore downtown Chicago during lunch or even after class.

Who are your biggest influences?

My sister finished school with her bachelor’s degree and is currently going for her master’s.

What Brought These Students To Massage

At the heart of everything here are, of course, our students.  Soma is very proud that we have such a diverse group with so many wonderful stories to share, and we’ve been asking them to write down some of their experiences for us.  The first three stories we received were from a former personal trainer, a retail employee and a licensed cosmetologist.

RAY

What did you do before Soma?

Work in office setting also went to school for personal trainer.

What brought you to massage in general, and to Soma specifically?

I always liked giving massages.  I knew I was good since I always made people fall asleep.  So I decided to go to massage school but shied away feeling it was more of a female based field, but ten years later I got fed up working in an office and made the move.  I only knew of a different massage school at the time, but didn’t have any luck when it came to financial aid.  So when I redid my search Soma came up.  I got a call the same day and started in May.

Do you like having classes in downtown Chicago?

It’s kind of far but being downtown gives me an awesome feeling and there’s always something going on.

Who are your biggest influences?

Myself and family of course.  I push myself to be the best because if I don’t kill it my family won’t eat.

Anything else you want to add?

My experience at Soma has been great.  Very educational, and the best part is that the staff are all past students, which is helpful in preparing for the tests.

 

When Soma Does Chair Massage

When our students are about a third of the way through the program we take them down to the lobby of our building and hold a free chair massage event for all the building’s 22 floors worth of employees.  Just like at the marathon, the students are nervous going into it, as they’ve never worked on the public before and aren’t sure how they’ll measure up.  And, just like the marathon, the students end the day slightly exhausted but with a newfound confidence to propel them forward.

Below we’re going to list some of the benefits of chair massage, both for the client and for the massage practitioner.

1. Chair massage relieves muscles aches and pains.  This is a basic one but one worth repeating.  Massage, even just a ten minute chair massage, will encourage the relaxation of tight musculature, which will in turn increase blood flow through those muscles.  More blood flow equals more healing, and more healing equals less pain.  Chair massage is, of course, meant to be focused on the upper back and neck (and yes, you can manipulate the chair and your posture to work on pretty much any part of a person you want, but at its core I think we can all agree chair massage is meant for upper back and neck work), so if you’re a person who needs to hunch forward a lot at work, or while driving, or while cooking, or while watching TV, or just from waking up in the morning, then a chair massage might be a great option to relieve some of that pain.
2. Chair massage is quick.  There’s no need to plan your day around driving to a spa and disrobing and getting on a table without clothes and then potentially showering afterwards and getting back to wherever you came from.  Chair massage can come to you.  You get on the chair fully clothed and it only takes ten to fifteen minutes.  So it’s not stressful to get the chair massage, and it relieves the stress you came in with also.
3. Chair massage has been proven to increase productivity in the workplace.  It has been found that office workers who receive a ten minute chair massage around midday return to their desks and do more work the rest of the day.  So if you are an employer and you’re looking for a way to get your staff working harder, just get somebody to come in and give out chair massages.
4. For massage therapists, chair massage is a great way to promote your business.  Massage chairs are super portable, so you can take it pretty much anywhere, which can include sporting events, conferences, school events, etc.  It is a time honored tradition amongst massage therapists to give out chair massage and then hand out business cards along with that with the hope of impressing a potential client so much that they’ll book you on the spot after those ten minutes.  And it works!
5. Chair massage is also a great item to offer from your business.  Employers often hire massage therapists to come in to their offices as a sort of gift to their staff (see number 3 above).
6. Chair massage improves sleep quality.  This goes for all massage as well, but even just receiving a ten minute chair massage has shown that people who have trouble falling asleep sleep better and longer after a chair massage.  Your muscles tense up due to the stresses of everyday living (mortgages, taxes, elections, etc), so if you can relax those muscles things will work in reverse, and you’ll actually end up with lower stress levels.  Lower stress levels mean a good nights sleep.