Wellness
Including one for when your stomach’s out of sorts.
There are lots of time in life where a professional massage seems like heaven. But if you can’t get to a massage therapist, TikTok’s got you covered, with a host of self-massage techniques to soothe your aching muscles.
Even if you’re not trained as a masseuse, self-massage can help your muscle aches and increase blood flow — and you don’t have to invest in a lot of fancy equipment to do it. Though if you’re really longing to pick up that indulgent jade roller to relax your face, go on, treat yo’self). As the massage therapists and chiropractors of TikTok show, with a bit of practice and some spare time, you can work out those kinks and feel better after a long, hard day.
The #selfmassage TikTok tag is part of a wider TikTok trend for at-home wellness advice. From at-home yoga tutorials to guides on meditation, TikTokers have been showing their expertise in all-things self-care. The platform even has a Wellness Hub to collect the most popular resources in one place. Self-massage videos, in particular, demonstrate easy techniques for getting a knot out of your neck, or foam rolling after a hard workout.
So light a candle, get your favorite oil, and learn how to give yourself a massage with some of TikTok’s best tips.
Studies cited:
Franklin, N. C., Ali, M. M., Robinson, A. T., Norkeviciute, E., & Phillips, S. A. (2014). Massage therapy restores peripheral vascular function after exertion. Archives of physical medicine and rehabilitation, 95(6), 1127–1134. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apmr.2014.02.007
Gordon, R., & Bloxham, S. (2016). A Systematic Review of the Effects of Exercise and Physical Activity on Non-Specific Chronic Low Back Pain. Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland), 4(2), 22. https://doi.org/10.3390/healthcare4020022
Kindler, S., Samietz, S., Houshmand, M., Grabe, H. J., Bernhardt, O., Biffar, R., Kocher, T., Meyer, G., Völzke, H., Metelmann, H. R., & Schwahn, C. (2012). Depressive and anxiety symptoms as risk factors for temporomandibular joint pain: a prospective cohort study in the general population. The journal of pain, 13(12), 1188–1197. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpain.2012.09.004
Kerautret, Y., Di Rienzo, F., Eyssautier, C., & Guillot, A. (2020). Selective Effects of Manual Massage and Foam Rolling on Perceived Recovery and Performance: Current Knowledge and Future Directions Toward Robotic Massages. Frontiers in physiology, 11, 598898. https://doi.org/10.3389/fphys.2020.598898
Lee, S. P., Hsu, Y. T., Bair, B., Toberman, M., & Chien, L. C. (2018). Gender and posture are significant risk factors to musculoskeletal symptoms during touchscreen tablet computer use. Journal of physical therapy science, 30(6), 855–861. https://doi.org/10.1589/jpts.30.855
Miyaji, A., Sugimori, K., Hayashi, N. (2018) Short- and long-term effects of using a facial massage roller on facial skin blood flow and vascular reactivity. Complementary Therapies in Medicine, 2018; 41: 271 DOI: 10.1016/j.ctim.2018.09.009
Meier, M., Unternaehrer, E., Dimitroff, S.J. et al. (2020) Standardized massage interventions as protocols for the induction of psychophysiological relaxation in the laboratory: a block randomized, controlled trial. Sci Rep10, 14774. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-71173-w
This article was originally published on