Foot massage Gainesville FL: a lavender and sea salt soak first

Thirty minutes covers the soak and a massage of both feet, and it is the easiest length to fit into a lunch hour or the gap before dinner. If your arches or heels ache after a long shift, 45 or 60 minutes gives the therapist room to slow down on the sore spots instead of covering everything once. For an hour that also reaches your back, the Combo further down this page is the one to look at.

Lavender, rose, herbs and sea salt. Your feet go into the soak before the therapist starts, and the massage follows once they come out. The soak comes with every Foot Massage, whichever of the three lengths you book.

If you enjoy the lavender and rose, the scent can carry on into the massage itself. Essential Oils is a $10 add-on with a choice of ginger, rose or lavender oil; call (352) 339-6646 or ask at the studio to add it.

Loose pants that roll up past the ankle make the soak easier. Mention any cut, blister or fresh tattoo on your feet before they go in, because salt water stings on broken skin.

It gives you a few minutes to sit still before the hands-on work begins, and the massage then starts on clean feet. We know of no trial that tests this particular blend, so we describe it for what it is: a calm, scented start to the session rather than a treatment in its own right.

Book Foot Massage if you want the soak and a relaxing massage of the whole foot; book Reflexology Massage if you want targeted pressure on specific points. Our menu describes Foot Massage as pressure on the feet for relaxation and tension relief, and Reflexology Massage as pressure on set points of the feet, hands or ears, unlike a traditional massage that works whole muscles and soft tissue.

The two also run to different lengths. Reflexology sits on the same price ladder as the other body massages, so it goes from 30 minutes up to 120, while Foot Massage stops at 60. The soak is listed with Foot Massage; if you would like one before a reflexology session, ask when you book.

Almost none of it looks at feet specifically. Reflexology works from its own map of points, and its nearest relative with a real body of trials is acupuncture. The NCCIH overview of traditional Chinese medicine reports that acupuncture may help 4 kinds of often-chronic pain (low-back pain, neck pain, osteoarthritis and knee pain, and carpal tunnel syndrome), and also that some trials found sham acupuncture worked as well as the real kind, which points to a placebo effect.

Those results come from needles placed by acupuncturists. Applying them to a thumb pressing the arch of your foot is a reasonable guess rather than a tested result. Book reflexology because you find it relaxing, and keep any ongoing medical problem with your own clinician. Our guide to tui na and acupressure covers the same evidence for hands-on point work.

It is if your back or shoulders are tight as well as your feet. The Combo Massage is 60 minutes for $80, split into 30 minutes of body massage and 30 minutes of foot massage, and it can be booked online.

An hour of Foot Massage costs the same and is booked by phone, so the choice comes down to where you want the time to go. After a day standing at a counter, a register or a hospital bedside, much of the ache tends to sit in the calves, lower back and feet, and the Combo lets you split the hour between them. Tell the therapist at the start where you want the body half to concentrate.

If your feet are the only complaint, 30 minutes of Foot Massage is the shorter and cheaper visit, and the soak comes with it. The 60 minute Reflexology Massage is the other foot-focused hour you can book online at the same price as the Combo.

For stress in the moment, it can. The American Massage Therapy Association cites a workplace study in which a single 15-minute on-site chair massage was followed by a significant fall in both systolic and diastolic blood pressure.

That study worked on people sitting at their workplace rather than on feet, so take it as a sign that a short massage can register in the body, not as a promise about any one session. Pain that has lasted for weeks is a question for a clinician first, and a massage can sit alongside that care rather than replace it.

We are open 9:30 AM to 10 PM every day, Sunday included, so a 30 minute session fits before work, in a lunch break or after dinner. The studio is in southwest Gainesville, west of I-75, off Tower Road (SW 75th St) near SW Archer Road. From UF Health Shands it is about 6 miles west along Archer Road, a drive of about 15 to 20 minutes and longer at shift change.

There is no fixed rule for relaxation. You might book after a run of long shifts or before a weekend on your feet, and the right gap is whatever your schedule and budget allow. If you are booking to manage a pain problem, ask your clinician what a sensible plan looks like and bring that to the therapist.

Anyone with an open wound, infection or recent injury on the feet or ankles should ask first, and so should anyone whose doctor is treating a circulation or nerve problem in the legs. The therapist can change the pressure or leave an area alone, but only for what you mention before the soak.

NCCIH's tips on massage for health purposes make 2 practical points: tell all your health care providers about any complementary approach you use, and ask a practitioner about their training and experience. Sessions here are given by our licensed massage therapists, and Florida licenses both therapists and massage establishments through the Florida Board of Massage Therapy.

Foot massage Gainesville FL checklist: tell the therapist about any of these before the soak.