By: Wellness Council Member, David Marcarian, MA
There is nothing like a great massage from the hands of a great massage therapist. A few years ago, my New Year’s Resolution was to get hands-on massage on a regular basis. To ensure the success of my resolution required a commitment much like joining a gym. I immediately found a massage clinic with locations throughout the U.S. and signed up! The experience was actually quite nice. The offices are quite esthetically pleasing, and the massage therapists were very skilled. I liked that I could schedule online, as I am so busy and it would be so difficult to call ahead to schedule my massage.
There was only one problem. Human Nature. Just as with a gym membership, if there is difficulty getting to the gym, difficulty parking, difficulty finding time – well like electricity, humans find the quickest path to ground. When it comes to the gym membership, that means not leaving the ground my feet were on in front of the couch. The problem? Even with online scheduling, if I did not schedule my massage at least a few days in advance, I would never get in, or get the therapist I wanted.
So here we are three years later, with monthly fees for several years and only three real massages! It’s not their fault. They have a fantastic service and system. Convenience is the key: If the service is not directly in front of you, or requires that you drive and park at times which are difficult, we simply won’t follow through. Just like with the gym membership, I purchased an elliptical instead. I wake up in the morning and with it sitting right there in front of me, I have no excuses at all. For 8 years now I’ve used it, and my blood pressure has dropped to 123 / 73 and has stayed the same due to the convenience of the elliptical.
How many massages have I had with my Human Touch® Zero Gravity Massage Chair? I cannot even count. Sometimes it has been twice a day. I’ve woken up at 2:00 AM not able to sleep. I schedule my massage by sitting down and pressing the button: The only scheduling issue is if there is anyone else in the house. And one shift in Human Touch Engineering which has had quite an influence on access to the chair? Unfortunately for me, Human Touch engineers have finely tuned their latest massage chairs to magically adjust to the user. The newer designs are much gentler than the old “rough” rollers, meaning women now love the Human Touch approach to massage technology as much as men.
The other real advantage of having the Human Touch chair at home is that you have no way of knowing what random stressors in life, both physical and emotional, will hit at any given moment. It is really nice to know that you have a massage chair at home you can rely upon at 3:00 AM when you wake up with an aching back: A role very few legitimate massage therapists are able to fill.
For the right person who is organized enough to plan ahead, the massage franchises offer a wonderful service. For the rest of us? It may actually be less expensive when you take into considering parking, gas, work time lost etc. to own the most expensive Human Touch massage chair made! Another really good point is that massage is supposed to reduce stress, not increase it. If it takes too much effort to schedule a massage, the massage is a bit ruined for me. In addition, I really don’t like getting massage oil all over my new car’s seats!
If you have time to schedule a real-life massage, more power to you. For the rest of us insanely busy people in a world filled with traffic, stress and beeping reminders always going off, I will just stay home, curl up with a book, Netflix, and my Human Touch Massage chair whenever I choose: Just one less thing in life requiring a schedule.
