You feel like a sack of marbles these days. Head's pounding, breathing comes in shallow bursts, back is so stiff, head hurts to move, and what's with those corded muscles running up and down your neck?
Workplace stress is taking a huge toll. And employers are trying to come up with ways to help employees find relief. One growing craze: the perk of an on-site massage.
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WHAT IT IS
An in-office backrub lasting five to 30 minutes that usually targets the areas where we hold the most stress: shoulders, neck, upper back, arms and hands. You sit curled up over an ergonomic massage chair while a stranger kneads your body.
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HOW IT WORKS
An on-site massage company shows up at your office with a specially designed massage chair. It looks like an instrument of torture but is actually quite comfy (and yes, sitting in it, you do look like a frog in mid-hop). The massage practitioner posts a sign-up sheet; you arrive at a scheduled time, are asked a couple of health-related questions, the chair is wiped down to keep everything squeaky clean and hygienic, and then you settle in.
You're fully clothed and tips are always accepted.
Some clients are chatty. Others like absolute silence. If you feel weird having someone you don't know touch you without saying a word, initiate conversation. The practitioner will follow your lead either way.
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WHAT IT COSTS
$60 to $80 an hour.
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THE COVERAGE
Some companies pay full price for the perk, some pay for part. Others offer the service as part of a wellness program, but employees pick up the tab.
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WHY THEY DO IT
Stress makes us sick, physically and emotionally. It's been linked to problems ranging from headaches and fatigue to high blood pressure and obesity. Work has been identified as one of the main culprits for getting us into a stressed-out state. And bosses know it: More than 78 per cent of Canadian employers identified work-related stress as the biggest threat to their employees' well-being in a survey by Buffett & Co. Workplace Wellness Ltd. last year. And that isn't good for business: Work stress costs Canadian employers billions a year, from problems with absenteeism and turnover to payments for benefits and services.
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THE BACK-UP
One 1996 study by the Touch Research Group at the University of Miami put 26 employees in the chair for 15-minute massages twice a week and another group of 24 who were just asked to close their eyes and relax in the massage chair.
They were monitored with an electroencephalograph machine, completed depression and anxiety tests and provided saliva samples. The results: those who were massaged reduced their stress more and improved performance more than the control group.
Not only that: The massaged workers completed math problems in half the time and with half the errors they had before they were massaged. The math skills in the control group did not improve.
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IT'S RUBBING OFF
The Society for Human Resource Management reported this year that 13 per cent of its 210,000 member companies offer workplace massage. Working Mother recently reported that 77 per cent of its top 100 U.S. companies offer massage at work.
While there are no statistics on the number of Canadian companies that have offered massage therapy on-site, the list includes Research In Motion Ltd., TD Canada Trust, Reebok Canada, HSBC Bank Canada, 1-800-GOT-JUNK? and Veer Inc.
Carrie Rubel, owner of Massage on Wheels in Toronto, has been in the chair massage business for seven years and says she can work a nine-hour day, pushing through five employees an hour.
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HOW THE CRAZE BEGAN
The company that started it all: Apple Inc.
It was Apple, back in 1984, that asked California massage therapist David Palmer to set up a program with seven other practitioners to massage Apple employees every week.
At the peak, the practitioners were offering up to 350 chair massages a week, with the company covering it all.
Source: www.touchpro.com
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FURTHER BACK
Karen Menehan, editor of Massage Magazine, says that massage itself has been around for as long as humans have had backs and fingers to rub them. Some say the oldest known book about massage was written in China about 3000 BC. As far back as 776 BC, records show that Olympic athletes were massaged prior to events. Julius Caesar is said to have used massage therapy to relieve neuralgia and epileptic seizures and was thought to be "pinched" every day.
Source: www.thebodyworker.com
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WATCH WHAT YOU SAY
Sigmund Freud used massage to treat hysteria, and postulated that what we did not or will not confront in our lives would be buried in the unconscious mind.
Maybe that's why Aisa Kalyegira, owner of Chair Massage at Work in Oakville, Ont., says that some of her male clients tend to say some, ahem, inappropriate things while sitting in the chair in the office. "Sometimes I think they're just not aware they're saying it. Or maybe they're just nervous."
Women tend to be a little more comfortable getting a massage than men, she says, although they're more comfortable with someone of the same sex. And men are willing to put up with more pain, or at least they don't complain - especially if it's a woman giving the massage, she says.