“How Often Should I Get a Massage?” A Therapist's Guide
You'd be surprised how often I get asked this. Usually it's around the 40 minute mark, when someone has finally melted into the table and works up the nerve to ask the thing they've been wondering the whole time. "So... how often should I actually be doing this?"
It's a great question. Let me give you the honest answer first, then the useful one.
The honest answer is that it depends a little on your body and a lot on your budget. Bob Hope reportedly got a massage nearly every day of his adult life, and the man made it to 100. If you've got Bob Hope money and Bob Hope time, wonderful, I'll happily see you that often. For those of us living in the actual world, let's talk about what's realistic and what genuinely moves the needle.
Ready to get on the table? You can book a session here.
Once a Month: The Baseline
If you take nothing else from this, take this. Once a month is the standard, and there's a reason it stuck around.
A monthly rhythm is easy to remember. It's the interval most membership plans are built on. And for a lot of people, it's the floor for feeling like a functional human being instead of a collection of knots wearing a shirt.
Monthly works well if you:
Sit at a desk most of the day but stay reasonably active otherwise
Want a regular check in with your own body before something turns into a real problem
Are managing everyday stress and tension rather than a specific injury
This is maintenance. It's the oil change, not the engine rebuild. The whole point is to catch the little stuff before it compounds. As the American College of Physicians notes in its guidance on low back pain, massage therapy is a reasonable, low risk option to reach for before things escalate.***
Twice a Month: If You Really Use Your Body
This is the tier for people who ask a lot of their bodies. Hard training athletes, weekend warriors who go a little too hard, anyone training for something with a date attached to it, and folks working their way back from an injury.
Here's where the research gets genuinely interesting. A dosing trial out of Seattle looked at exactly this question and found that for chronic neck pain, 60 minute sessions two to three times a week produced meaningful improvement, while shorter or less frequent sessions often didn't.*
Now, I'm not telling you to see me twice a week forever. But when something is actively cranky, more frequency up front makes a real difference, and then we taper down to maintenance once your body settles. If you're rebuilding after a tough block of training, twice a month is a smart home base. (I wrote more about the recovery side of this in my post on how massage aids post workout recovery.)
Worth booking some recovery time? Grab a slot here.
Once a Week: The Reset
Not everyone can swing weekly, and that's completely fine. But if you can, it's a beautiful thing to give yourself.
Weekly massage becomes a rhythm your body starts to anticipate. The nervous system learns the pattern, the tension never gets a chance to fully reset its grip, and you spend a lot more of your life feeling loose and capable. People who go weekly will tell you their body starts looking forward to it, and they're not imagining that. (If the stress side of things is what's driving you, here's what's actually happening in your nervous system.)
Weekly tends to be the right call for:
Older clients dealing with persistent pain, stiffness, or circulation issues
Anyone using massage as a primary tool for managing a chronic condition
People in a high stress, high output season of life who need a real release valve
And there's research behind keeping it going, too. A follow up study to that Seattle dosing trial found that "booster" sessions after an initial course helped people hold onto the gains they'd made.** Translation: consistency is what makes the results stick.
So Which One Are You?
Honestly, you don't have to figure this out alone. That's literally my job.
This is exactly why I do an intake with every new client during our first session together. I want to know what your body is dealing with, what you do all day, what you're training for, what hurts, and what you're hoping to get out of this. That conversation tells me far more than any one size fits all chart ever could. (Curious what that first session looks like? I broke it down here.)
A quick note on my approach while we're here. I used to sort everything into neat little boxes. Deep tissue over here, Swedish over there, sports massage in the corner. I don't really work that way anymore. What I do now is a custom therapeutic massage that pulls from all of those modalities, deep tissue, sports massage, myofascial work, based on what your body actually needs on the day I show up. Some days that's slow and grounding. Some days we're getting after a stubborn shoulder. Your body tells us, and I listen.
Wherever You Are in LA, I Come to You
Here's the part that makes all of this easier to stick to. As a mobile massage therapist, I bring everything to you. The table, the sheets, the blanket, the oil, the music. All I ask is roughly an 8 by 8 foot space to set up, and you handle the rest by simply existing in your own home.
No fighting traffic on the 405. No rushing across town. No driving home half asleep afterward. That convenience is a big reason my clients are able to keep a regular rhythm going instead of letting it slide.
I bring in home massage throughout Los Angeles, including Beverly Hills, Santa Monica, West Hollywood, Studio City, Encino, Calabasas, and across The Valley.
The Bottom Line
If you're feeling overwhelmed by all of this, let me make it simple.
Once a month keeps you maintained. Twice a month supports a body that works hard. Weekly is a true reset for chronic issues and high stress seasons. And the single most important rule is this: it's far better to go a little less often than you'd like than to skip it altogether. Even a monthly massage does real good.
Listen to your body. If the benefits are lasting nicely, you're on the right track. If they wear off fast, we bump up the frequency for a bit. Your perfect rhythm isn't set in stone, and we'll find it together.
Whenever you're ready, you can book your massage right here.
References
Citations retrieved via PubMed.
[*] Sherman KJ, Cook AJ, Wellman RD, et al. Five-week outcomes from a dosing trial of therapeutic massage for chronic neck pain. Annals of Family Medicine. 2014;12(2):112-120. https://doi.org/10.1370/afm.1602
[**] Cook AJ, Wellman RD, Cherkin DC, Kahn JR, Sherman KJ. Randomized clinical trial assessing whether additional massage treatments for chronic neck pain improve 12- and 26-week outcomes. The Spine Journal. 2015;15(10):2206-2215. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.spinee.2015.06.049
[***] Qaseem A, Wilt TJ, McLean RM, Forciea MA. Noninvasive Treatments for Acute, Subacute, and Chronic Low Back Pain: A Clinical Practice Guideline From the American College of Physicians. Annals of Internal Medicine. 2017;166(7):514-530. https://doi.org/10.7326/M16-2367
