COVID: Is it safe to get a massage right now?

If the ravaging pandemic has left you feeling tired to the bones, be rest assured that you are not alone. If the stress of an ongoing health crisis wasn’t enough, the blurring lines between “work” and “home” in the work from home routine has put a lot of people over the edge. While countries across the globe are slowly lifting lockdown restrictions, the world has certainly not been the same. As the guidelines make it pretty clear that one should not step out unless absolutely necessary, where do we stand on getting a massage to relieve spasms, pain and exhaustion? If you are craving a feel-good massage to subside some of the pandemic stress or desperately need one for pain management, should you pay a visit to your nearest massage parlour? We dig in.

01/ ​What are the risks associated with massage

It should be noted that every time you step out of your home or come in contact with people you are not quarantined with, you always put yourself at a certain risk of contracting COVID-19. According to the World Health Organization, the novel coronavirus spreads through close (less than six feet) direct or indirect contact with infected droplets. So, one of the biggest risk factors associated with getting a massage is that you come in close contact with other people, in a compact setting. While getting a massage, you directly face the therapist or the masseuse, upping the risk of exposure. Ultimately, it increases your chances of inhaling infected droplets as there is enough evidence that the novel coronavirus can be airborne in closed settings. Secondly, the high-touch items present in the massage room can also serve as the carrier of the infectious contagion.

02/ ​What are the precautions you must take while visiting your massage therapist

Given that you will expose yourself to skin-to-skin contact, it is important that you follow certain precautions to keep yourself safe. The first step is to ensure that you are not running temperature and do not have any telltale signs of COVID-19. Secondly, it is important to check if the massage parlour (and massage therapists) are taking all the necessary precautions or not. Some of them include:

03/ A list of precautions

1. Thoroughly disinfecting and sanitizing the massage room and the massage beds after every session.

2.Practising proper hand hygiene (hand washing and sanitizing) after every client

3.Make sure the massage therapist is wearing a cloth mask or face cover

4. Ensuring staggered entry of clients and maintaining social distancing by limiting the number of clients

5. Mandatory masks and temperature check for anyone entering the massage parlour

6.Ensuring contact-less pay

7. Discarding uses gloves and face covers properly

8. Making space in the waiting area or ask clients to wait in their cars

9. Disinfecting high-touch areas regularly

10. Wearing a cloth cover or mask throughout the massage

04/ ​Should you go and get a massage right now?

It is important to understand that no matter how many precautions you take, you can never actually bring down the risk to zero. Hence, it is important to check whether the health benefits of getting a massage outweigh the risks involved for you and those around you. Our advice? As long as the therapy is not for pain management or anything that requires urgent attention, it can certainly wait. Now, may not be the best time to take a feel-good massage. Secondly, assess your risk-factors (and of the people you live with) to further understand whether you need that luxurious session of massaging your knots out or not. Ultimately, any massage needs to be deeply relaxing and if you feel stressed out just by the thought of contracting the virus, once you reach home, it is certainly counterproductive.

from LifeStyle