Swedish Massage

Swedish massage is the milk chocolate of the massage world: smooth, pleasurable and very widely available. It’s an indulgent, relaxing treat to soothe away stress, ease muscular pain and keep your body soft and supple.

How does it work?

When you hear the word detox, juice and celery diets are the first thing that spring to mind, but Swedish massage can actually help to detox too (and without leaving you famished). The massage uses a combination of long, gliding strokes, kneading and brisk hacking. The hacking and kneading vibrates and loosens your muscles, releasing any toxins that are loitering in your tissues. Once the toxins are released, the smooth strokes in the direction of your heart will boost circulation and carry away all the nasties to be filtered out of your system.

Swedish massage is done on bare skin, usually involving some kind of oil or lotion, which not only makes the strokes nice and smooth, but will also leave your skin baby soft. If you’re not comfortable with airing your birthday suit, it’s worth knowing that you can usually leave your pants (or panties) on. Your therapist will show you into the treatment room, but then leave to give you some privacy while you undress and lie on the massage table. There will be a sheet or a large towel to cover up with once you’re comfortable. During the massage, he or she will fold the sheet back in order to massage different parts of your body, but leave other parts covered so that you don’t feel too exposed.

Swedish massage is usually charged by treatment time, which can range anywhere from a short-and-sweet 30 minutes to two hours of neck to toe indulgence.

Is it for me?

Whether you have a niggling backache, a mile-long ‘to do’ list or you just feel you deserve a treat, Swedish massage is an ideal treatment. It’s deeply relaxing, a great stress-buster and it feels amazing. Better still, by improving your circulation, your flexibility and working tension out of your muscles Swedish massage can improve your general health too.

Good to know

It’s thought that some of the techniques of Swedish massage date from as early as the 1700s.