Getting a massage is a little like picking out toppings at the sundae bar: Some choices might be better than others, but it's not a decision you can really screw up. Still, there are ways to optimize the experience.
Unless you are super experienced with total strangers rubbing you for an hour (in which case, sorry about the Ashley Madison leak), it can be hard to know what to do and say—and not do and say—because even before you enter your personal little low-light relaxation chamber, you'll be exposed to a number of new-agey terms and ritualistic behaviors that can seem pretty confusing.
To simplify the process, follow these five steps.
1. Choose wisely. If you cannot choose wisely, let them do it. Massage menus are often vast and can include words you don't use a lot in real life, like "warmed spice mud" and "lavender dreams." To "report" this story I visited the Woodhouse Day Spa on the north side of Indianapolis, a plush cave soundtracked by pan flute music, and there I selected the "volcanic stone massage," because if I'm being honest, it sounded like the manliest deal on the list. Turned out to be a good call: Volcanic stone massages involve super-smooth stones made of basalt that are heated and slid over "key points" on your body. My therapist, Sage, said that geologic warmth helps relax muscles, relieves pain, increases circulation and does other things you don't normally associate with volcanoes. It did bliss me right out, I know that much.
2. "Disrobe to your level of comfort." This is what they tell you, and that's a pretty massive gray area. As a guy who grew up both Midwestern and Catholic, my "level of comfort" in a strange facility is basically "business casual" bordering on "full suit of armor." But you can't really crawl under the tightly tucked sheets of a massage table wearing jeans and not feel like a schmuck, so you do what you can.
3. Start with the medium. Do not go straight to the deep-tissue massage, no matter how tough you think you are. Sage says lots of guys come in and ask for the hardcore rugby-scrum-on-the-back-muscles treatment, then wake up the next morning shattered with pain, never to return. Start medium and work your way up to the Iron Sheik treatment. Sage warned me early to tell her if her pressure is uncomfortable or the stones were too hot. Actually she used the phrase "If your insides are screaming," which, generally speaking, is something I'm gonna be pretty vocal about.
**4. Sleep if you want! ** One Woodhouse therapist had a client who snored straight through 40 minutes of her 50-minute massage. "It's the greatest compliment," Sage told me. "It means you're totally relaxed." If her clients drift away, she'll do her thing until they (usually) wake themselves up snoring. If they do not wake themselves up snoring, Sage drops a volcanic rock on them. (Just kidding.)
5. Make a graceful exit."Welcome back to Earth," Sage said afterward, or at least I think it was her, as her voice seemed to drift in from some shimmering luminous cloud-planet several galaxies away. I did not want to come back to Earth. I wanted very much to stay in my anteroom in not-Earth. The staff handed me water; I handed back a 20-percent tip, standard for salons and therapists. They recommended coming back every four to six weeks—regular treatments, they said, are the key to continued relaxation (and, one assumes, to keeping the lights on at the Woodhouse Day Spa). I'm no expert on massages or relaxation therapy, but that figure seemed way, way off to me. To be safe, I booked one for the following week.