How often should you get a massage? A simple guide

"How often should I come?" is one of the questions we hear most, and the answer people expect is a number. The useful answer is a question back: what are you trying to achieve? Because the right frequency for someone managing chronic desk tension is nothing like the right frequency for someone who books a massage twice a year as a treat — and both of those are correct answers.

Here is the framework our therapists actually use.

1. If you are managing ongoing tension

Desk work, driving, standing all day, small children, or a neck that has been complaining for years. This is the situation we see most often, and the one where frequency genuinely matters.

Every two to four weeks. The logic: tension rebuilds on a predictable cycle. If you leave it eight weeks, each session is spent undoing the same accumulation from scratch and you never get ahead. A 30- to 60-minute back and shoulder massage every three weeks will usually do more for ongoing tension than a two-hour treatment twice a year. It costs more over a year, but you are paying to stay ahead rather than to dig yourself out.

2. If you are training or physically working

Running, gym, trades, hospitality, anything with load and repetition.

Weekly to fortnightly during heavy blocks, monthly in maintenance. Time it around the load rather than the calendar: firmer work like deep tissue sits best two or three days after a hard session and not the day before a race or event. Our guide to timing a massage around your workouts goes into the detail.

3. If it is about stress and sleep

No specific pain, just a nervous system that has been running hot for months.

Monthly, on a fixed date. The regularity does as much work as the massage here — a booking in the calendar is a commitment to stop, which is exactly the thing stressed people cannot otherwise give themselves. Aromatherapy at 60 or 90 minutes, or hot stone at 90 minutes when you want the heat.

4. If it is a treat

Whenever you like, and there is nothing wrong with that. Birthdays, anniversaries, the end of a hard quarter, the first cold week of winter. Nobody needs to justify a massage on a wellness framework.

"A shorter massage more often beats a long massage rarely — for everything except an occasion."

Siri therapist team

How to make regular affordable

The obstacle is usually cost, and the fix is usually duration rather than frequency. Compare, at St Heliers:

• One 120-minute massage every three months — $195 per visit, roughly $65 a month, and around twelve weeks of tension building between visits.
• One 30-minute back and shoulder every three weeks — $60 per visit, roughly $85 a month, and never more than three weeks of build-up.
• One 60-minute massage monthly — $105 a month, and a genuine reset each time.

Viaduct prices run slightly higher than St Heliers across the board — $65 versus $60 for 30 minutes, $115 versus $105 for an hour. Worth knowing if you are near both. Our guide to massage prices in Auckland sets out the full ladder at both branches.

Signs you have left it too long

• You can feel the knot with your own hand, and could last month too
• You have started sleeping badly and cannot say when it began
• Turning your head to reverse the car has become a whole-torso movement
• Tension headaches two or three times a week — worth raising with your GP as well
• Your first massage in months hurts more than it used to — that is accumulation, not the therapist

How long should you leave between massages?

There is a floor as well as a ceiling, and it depends mostly on how firm the last session was.

• After gentle work — aromatherapy, warm coconut oil, an easy Swedish — there is no real minimum. If you feel good, a week later is fine.
• After firm work — deep tissue, a strong Thai session, a lot of attention on one stubborn knot — wait until any tenderness has fully gone, usually a day or two, and give that particular spot longer before it gets firm pressure again.
• If you are still sore three days later, the pressure was too much for you that day. Tell your therapist next time so they can ease off, rather than booking sooner to try to fix it.

Two specific cases. A fresh injury — a sprain, a strain, a fall — should be left alone until it has been checked and the first painful, swollen stage has passed. And if you are training for an event, keep firm work at least two or three days clear of race day.

In practice, most people managing ongoing tension land on every two to four weeks: long enough for the body to settle between sessions, short enough that the tension never fully rebuilds.

The honest limitation

Massage is maintenance, not medicine. If you have pain that wakes you at night, numbness, pins and needles, pain radiating down an arm or leg, a joint that will not move, or anything that has been getting steadily worse, see a GP or physiotherapist first. Healthify's back pain guide lists the signs that need a doctor rather than a massage, including constant pain that is worse at night and numbness or weakness in a leg. We are very good at tension. We are not a substitute for a diagnosis.

If you are ready to make it regular, the easiest habit is to book the next appointment before you leave. And the small things you do between visits genuinely stretch the benefit — our desk posture fixes and five small workday rituals are the two most useful places to start.

Common questions