How Often Should You Get a Massage?

"How often should I come back?" is the question we hear most. The honest answer depends on what your body does during the week. Here is the breakdown our therapists use.

If you have a desk job: monthly

Sitting all day creates predictable tension in the upper back, shoulders, and neck. A 60-minute session once a month is enough to keep that from accumulating into long-term tension. If you also work out hard, bump it to every 3 weeks.

If you do trades or physical work: every 2–3 weeks

Construction, warehouse work, healthcare on your feet — these jobs put real stress on the body. The wear is faster, so the recovery interval should be shorter. Most of our trades regulars come in every 2 to 3 weeks for 60-minute deep tissue.

If you are dealing with active pain: weekly for 3–4 weeks, then taper

If something is actively hurting (chronic neck pain, lower-back flare-up, recurring tension headaches), short-term frequency helps. Once a week for 3 to 4 weeks, then drop down to bi-weekly, then monthly. The first cluster of sessions does the heavy lifting; after that, maintenance keeps it from coming back.

If you mostly want to relax: as often as your schedule allows

If you are coming for stress relief rather than fixing something specific, there is no "correct" frequency. Some guests come weekly because it is part of how they manage anxiety. Others come every 2–3 months and that is enough.

What does not work

Coming in once, expecting a permanent fix. Coming in only when you are in pain. Coming in but not changing the underlying habit (the desk setup, the heavy bag on one shoulder, the sleeping position). Massage helps — but it works best alongside small daily adjustments.

Our regulars who come monthly tell us they almost never get "the bad week" anymore. The math works out to about an hour a month for noticeably better weeks. That is the honest pitch.

How St George life changes the interval

The right frequency is not just about your job here — it is about how you live in the desert. St George is an outdoor town year-round: hiking Snow Canyon, golf, pickleball over in Little Valley, long bike rides. Active bodies recover better on a tighter interval. The dry climate also dehydrates muscle tissue faster than people expect, which makes tension build a little quicker than it would somewhere humid.

Seasonal residents matter too. Snowbirds and winter visitors often come weekly while they are here for a few months, then pause — that is a perfectly reasonable rhythm, not a problem.

Signs you waited too long

A few honest tells: the same knot keeps coming back in the same spot, your range of motion feels smaller than it did, you are getting tension headaches, or you notice you are bracing your shoulders without realizing it. If two or three of those are true, you are past maintenance and into catch-up — and catch-up takes more sessions than staying on schedule would have.

How to find your own interval

If you do not want to guess, run a simple month-long test. Start with one 60-minute session, then pay attention to roughly when the same tension comes back — for some people that is twelve days, for others it is five weeks. That gap, minus a few days of buffer, is your interval. You are not aiming to never feel tension again; you are aiming to catch it before it turns into the bad week.

It also helps to think about cost the same way. Monthly maintenance is about an hour and $80 a month. Waiting until something seizes up usually means a cluster of closer-together sessions to dig back out, which costs more time and more money than staying on schedule would have. The guests who treat it like an oil change rather than a repair almost always spend less over a year.

Frequently asked questions

Is once a week too often?

No. Weekly is reasonable if you are managing active tension, training hard, or using massage as part of how you manage stress. There is no harm in it as long as the pressure is appropriate.

I have a desk job — how often should I come?

Monthly is the baseline that keeps desk tension from accumulating. Move to every three weeks if you also work out hard or sit more than eight hours a day.

Will one session fix my tension for good?

Usually not on its own. One session helps a flare-up; lasting results come from a short series, then monthly maintenance, alongside small daily habit changes.