Cold and flu viruses are flying around all over the place at this time of year. If you’re unlucky to catch one and have a massage appointment coming up, what should you do? Will the massage help to relieve your sickness or should you cancel and reschedule your appointment?

The best thing to do is reschedule your appointment if you have symptoms like a cough, sore throat, runny nose, blocked nose, and fatigue. Here are the main reasons why…

It can make you feel worse

Massage helps to flush toxins and waste materials out of your body. When you’re fighting a virus or infection, there are a lot of toxins circulating around your body, toxins that your body and immune system are already fighting hard to get rid of. The effects of a massage will exacerbate this, making it harder for your immune system to fight and worsening your symptoms. You’ll likely feel much more sick, tired, and sore after a massage.

It could ruin the massage experience

A massage is supposed to be a relaxing experience. If you’re constantly sniffing, sneezing, and coughing, then you’re not going to be very relaxed. As you sneeze and cough, you’re using muscles in your body. As your muscles tense up, the actions of the massage won’t be as effective and your massage therapist may have to stop until your coughing or sneezing fit has passed.

You could make others sick

If you’re sick, then you may be contagious. Going in for a massage then has a high risk of you passing your germs onto the massage therapist. A sick massage therapist must take time off work until they’re better because they don’t want to infect all of their clients. You should reschedule your appointment when you’re ill in order to avoid infecting your massage therapist. Plus, even though massage studios carefully sanitize after each client, you could still leave airborne germs that could infect others that come into the studio.

Massages can be helpful during flu season

Although you shouldn’t get a massage if you’re ill, massages can be beneficial in general during flu season. Massage boosts the immune system, which could help to prevent you from becoming sick. It also relieves stress and tension, and we are much more likely to get sick when we are stressed.

So, if you’ve caught a cold, make sure to tell your massage therapist and reschedule the appointment for after your symptoms have passed. If you want to book or reschedule a massage with us, then get in touch or use our online booking system.