Pairing Sauna with In-Room Massage

A quick trip down to the hotel sauna just before your treatment begins could lift your next massage to a higher level. This article describes why and how you can make your next in-room massage even better if your hotel has a sauna or steam room available.

Compounding Effects

Many of us associate hotel saunas with moments of being near naked whilst enduring extreme dry heat sitting on a hard slatted wood bench. Add the risk of finding yourself squeezed up close and personal next to undesirable strangers who are sweating excessively in a small dark room and it is no surprise that many hotel sauna rooms are often empty! We suggest you use this to your advantage.

Saunas are good for you. In fact, taking a hot dry sauna or steam bath has a lot in common with receiving a massage. And just like massage therapy, recent studies have shown that taking regular saunas offers the potential for many of the same health benefits.

By combining these two therapies you could be enjoying not only a more luxurious treat whilst staying in a hotel but also compound the improvements in your health and wellness from top to toe.

Sauna Before Massage

People often wonder what to do before and after a massage. When it comes to sauna baths, taking a sauna just before your massage is probably the better way to combine the two.

Since the inconvenience of travel would dilute many of the additional benefits, unless you are lucky enough to have a sauna room at home, the tips in this article are best used when you are next booking a visiting massage to your hotel room.

Before booking a mobile massage, check whether your hotel has a sauna or steam room available for guest use.

If you are booking an on-demand massage in London requesting the treatment in your hotel room for as soon as possible, then this is the perfect opportunity to take advantage of a sauna session while you wait for your therapist to arrive.

Since mobile massage therapists generally take around60 minutes to reach most hotels in London, try out the following recommended steps to use your waiting time most efficiently:

1. Many hotels leave their sauna room switched off during quieter periods to conserve energy. So call reception to ensure the sauna has been switched on and is fully heated up before you attend. This can take around 15 minutes.

2. Carry out a recommended sauna routine which takes about 30 minutes.

3. Spend the last 15 minutes before your therapist arrives to pop back to your room and freshen up with a shower. Emerge ready to enjoy your massage just as your therapist arrives.

When your therapist knocks on your door, you will be warm, clean, and calm – the ideal state to begin your holistic massage session in the comfort of your hotel room.

Benefits of Pre-Massage Sauna

Saunas are generally very quiet, dimly lit rooms where you sit alone surrounded by the warmth of natural wood and a deep penetrating intense heat. This kind of environment naturally encourages your mind to switch off and enjoy a moment or two of mindfulness. Calming your mind in this way is an excellent way to prepare yourself mentally in advance of massage therapy.

The intense heat of a sauna also relaxes muscles and helps improve blood circulation, much in the same way as do repeated massage strokes. By taking a sauna before your massage your muscles are warmed up in advance. This allows your masseuse to work deeper into tight areas more effectively and sooner, meaning more of your booked duration is spent actively massaging rather than warming up muscles.

Remember that taking a sauna leads to lots of water loss. To avoid dehydration it is very important to drink sufficient amounts of water during and after both your sauna and your massage treatment.

Sauna Style Tips

Wear a robe from your room to the sauna. This allows you to not have to worry about changing in and out of normal clothes twice over, since you are going to receive a massage in your room later.

Take two towels with you to the sauna. Use one to cover your body with and the other to sit on. Also ensure you have two further large dry towels left in your room for your masseuse to use during the massage.

Recommended Sauna Routine

Enjoy additional cardiovascular benefits by dividing your sauna into several short sequential stints:

• Start by spending 5 minutes in the sauna room, sitting on the lowest level bench.
• Then leave the room to take a very cold short shower (or ice bath) and a few sips of water.
• Return to the sauna and sit on the next level up. Stay there for 10 minutes before leaving for another cold shower.
• Repeat the hot sauna / cold shower routine one more time if it feels comfortable for you.

When your body experiences the sharp sudden change in temperature from the heat of the sauna to the cold of the shower, blood rushes from your skin back towards your organs as a natural response to warm up your body again. Then, when you re-enter the hot sauna and start to sweat again, blood rushes back towards your skin to cool your body. These rapid and repeated flows of blood back and forth along your arteries are believed to help clean arteries and keep them unclogged, when saunas are taken regularly over time.