Key Point

• Guiding clients through meditative visualization will help them reach a fully relaxed state and help their massage be most effective.

Adding guided imagery to your massage sessions is a powerful way to give clients a unique and deeply relaxing experience. You can improve your effectiveness and decrease strain on your body by employing visualization meditation as a tool. 

Consider these statistics:

• Meditation has skyrocketed in popularity. The number of people practicing meditation has tripled since 2012.¹
• Forty percent of Americans say they meditate at least weekly.²
• The US meditation industry is estimated to be worth $1 billion, with projections to grow to $9 billion by 2027.³
• People are turning to meditation to help cope with stress, anxiety, depression, pain management, and burnout. In a National Institutes of Health study, 90 percent of people who meditate do so to manage anxiety and stress.⁴ 

We added guided visualization to our shared massage practice 15 years ago to help our clients relax specific muscle groups more easily. As we worked, we used colorful imagery to describe our intention, and our clients’ bodies responded. 

Our massage sessions became more interactive. We encouraged clients to breathe in ways that enhanced their experience. We explained what a relaxed muscle feels like: how it moves, its texture, its balance in space. We used creative, nontechnical language that required minimal mental focus so we could keep them in their blissful, half-dream state. Our clients were intrigued by this approach to massage and felt more engaged in their healing. Let’s look at how you can incorporate this tool for your clients.

Helping Your Clients Relax

Humans are excellent at focusing on survival. Unfortunately, a chronically stressed client in the sympathetic state is wired to focus on surviving rather than healing. Until they feel safe enough, a client will remain in the sympathetic state, thus predisposing themselves to think about the stressors plaguing them. Their mind is unavailable to assist in healing until it calms.

Guided visualization is a great tool to help your clients release their anxious thoughts and surrender to the safety of the moment, where you can do your most effective work. Visualization recruits the mind by reinforcing neural pathways toward relaxation. Through practice, your client’s muscles relax more readily with mental imagery. Their mind becomes a partner in healing. 

We all have those clients who have a hard time relaxing. They stare at the ceiling or talk to you while you work. They “help” you by lifting their arms and legs. It’s as though they don’t know how to let go and relax. For these clients, we want to give them a carrot to follow, a path where they don’t feel the need to lead but can calmly tend to themselves inwardly. We want them to feel safe enough to drift into deep relaxation.

Other clients completely surrender their power to us. They can relax but don’t know how to participate in their healing during the session. They “check out” on the massage table and leave the work to us. They are relaxed, but if they were empowered to participate in their relaxation, they would have a more satisfying experience.

Ideally, our clients would focus on the sensations in their bodies while deeply relaxing. They would breathe with our cues and experience their muscles unwinding.

Active relaxation is a skill. It takes training to keep the mind present while the body rests. When clients are actively relaxed, they are engaged with the massage and can get the most out of the work. They participate by breathing, letting their limbs be heavy, and communicating with us about the sensations they experience.

When they bring themselves into this state of active relaxation, our clients receive many benefits. They develop the ability to maintain their calm awareness. They go inward, deeply feeling the sensations of the massage. They are more receptive to instruction on how they can actively participate in relaxing their muscles. And they feel empowered to assist in their healing, focusing their effort with imagination and breath.

Clients who practice this peaceful meditation during massage can mentally put themselves back into that healing state after the massage. They can return to the feelings that brought them peace during the massage. They begin to understand that they have a hand in their healing. 

Brain Power

Let’s examine how three areas of the brain have adapted to make visualization a powerful tool for transformation.

Occipital Lobe and Imagery

Your occipital lobe is responsible for vision and for visualizing events that have not happened.⁵ It uses about 20 percent of your brain’s capacity. With so much energy dedicated to the occipital lobe, image processing happens quickly and efficiently. If you want to absorb information quickly, make it visual—the more creative the imagery, the better.

Motor Cortex and Movement

Whether you perform an action or just imagine doing it, the same areas of your motor cortex fire—your brain responds the same with actual and imagined movement. A study in Strength and Conditioning Journal found that visualizing muscle contractions between weightlifting reps substantially increased the number of repetitions the participants could do.⁶ The researchers suggested that athletes who use effective imagery during their workouts may be able to perform at a higher level.

Studies like this make us wonder how visualization might enhance the effects of massage. If muscles gain strength through visualization, how might they relax through visualization?

Reticular Activating System: Conscious and Unconscious

Your reticular activating system (RAS) is a 2-inch long, pencil-thin structure in the brain that connects your cerebral cortex to your brain stem. The RAS governs what information is passed between your conscious and unconscious mind. It filters out unnecessary sensations (like the feeling of your clothes on your skin) and prioritizes other stimuli, like a car horn honking or your name being called. When your brain deems a piece of information important, the RAS sends the information to the brain stem for processing.

You can indicate to your RAS what you would like it to prioritize by visualizing the outcomes you desire. As you focus your thoughts, the RAS looks for ways to make them true. (For example, when you think about purchasing a new car in a specific color, you suddenly notice that
car everywhere.)

By visualizing your body relaxing, you put those thoughts to the forefront of your brain’s priorities. Your RAS will find ways to manifest the sensations you picture. The more specific and creative the imagery, the more effective the visualization becomes.

The RAS also regulates the sleep-wake cycle. For massage, where our “activity” occurs at the edge of the sleep-wake cycle, communicating with this part of the brain could benefit one’s ability to relax, both in the moment and in the future.

Adding Visualization to Your Massage

There are several ways to add visualization to your
massage session.

Specific Muscle Groups

You can use imagery to coach your client to relax specific muscle groups. If their jaw is tight and seems resistant to massage, for example, give them a short visual image (see the example on page 67) to help them relax it. Coaching your clients into relaxation using a few words here and there can be profoundly effective.

Full Body

You can bring your client through a whole-body guided visualization. One way to do this is to have them picture a warm, healing light entering each muscle group you’re working on. You can add imagery specific to each muscle group.

Prerecorded Visualizations

You can play prerecorded visualizations—complete with story, music, and background sounds—to bring your client on an audio journey. Carefully composed visualizations help your clients immerse themselves in vibrant imagery and stay creatively engaged in the massage. If the visualizations are written in the form of a story, your client is more likely to remember the experience they share with you. Another positive attribute of prerecorded visualizations is that you don’t need to think of what to say next. Instead, you can stay focused on the massage while your client dreams.

Tips for Incorporating the Work

If you are adding guided imagery to your massage, these tips will be helpful.

Set Expectations

Before you begin your massage, tell your client something like, “I’ll be talking quietly during your massage to help your body relax more deeply. You don’t have to respond; just let the words wash over you.” It surprises us how, even when a client is snoring, their body responds to our verbal cues. Their relaxed brain responds to the imagery even when the conscious mind drifts off.

Keep Massage Your Priority

Remember, your primary goal is to give a great massage. Don’t get distracted by what to say next. If you don’t know what to say, simply be quiet for a while. Silence is a powerful part of speaking. Let the words come naturally as you feel inspired. 

Speak Quietly

Your voice should blend with the ambient atmosphere of the room. Let your voice be heard just above the massage music. By speaking to your client with a quiet, soothing voice, they can stay deeply relaxed while listening. (Remember to face their head so they can hear your voice.)

Speak Slowly

As your client relaxes, their resting mind moves at a slower pace. Match that pace with your voice. Speak slowly and clearly so they don’t have to strain to understand you.

Use Nature Imagery

Studies show that using nature imagery in visualization enhances the relaxing effects of meditation.⁷ Research has shown that “being in nature” has a calming effect and can prove highly impactful for those navigating anxiety issues. When “being in nature” is not possible, researchers say nature-based guided visualizations can be the next best thing.

Avoid Using the Word Relax

In our experience, telling a client to relax does just the opposite. Many people have a lot of insecurity around their ability to relax; they get nervous they can’t do it. Rather than telling someone to relax, think of the feelings that relaxing this muscle brings. Describe the sensation to your client. By describing how the relaxed muscle feels, you are giving them clear instruction on how to let go.

Use All the Senses

The more vivid the imagery and the more senses it includes, the more effective the visualization. Whether a person actually experiences a sensation or just imagines they are, the same portions of the brain are activated.

Adding Color and Connection to Your Massage Practice

Visualization meditation is a valuable element to add to your massage. 

Visualization transforms each massage into a unique, rich, and vibrant experience. You add color, connections, thought, and a story to each session. When your client is immersed in a soundscape of vivid imagery, they are treated to a memorable experience that lives in their minds long after the massage is over. 

Notes

1. Tainya C. Clarke et al., “Use of Yoga, Meditation, and Chiropractors Among US Adults Aged 18 and Over,” NCHS Data Brief, no. 325 (November 2018), www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db325-h.pdf.

2. David Masci and Conrad Hackett, “Meditation Is Common Across Many Religious Groups in the US,” Pew Research Center (January 2018), http://pewrsr.ch/2lHc0HC.

3. “Global Meditation Market—Industry Trends and Forecast to 2030,” Data Bridge Market Research (September 2023), www.databridgemarketresearch.com/reports/global-meditation-market.

4. Holger Cramer et al., “Prevalence, Patterns, and Predictors of Meditation Use Among US Adults: A Nationally Representative Survey,” Scientific Reports 6, 36760 (2016), https://doi.org/10.1038/srep36760.

5. Christopher Taibbi, “Brain Basics, Part One: The Power of Visualization,” Psychology Today, November 4, 2012,
www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/gifted-ed-guru/201211/brain-basics-part-one-the-power-visualization.

6. Jeremy Richter, Jenelle Gilbert, and Mark Baldis, “Maximizing Strength Training Performance Using Mental Imagery,” Strength and Conditioning Journal 34, no. 5 (October 2012): 65–9, https://doi.org/10.1519/SSC.0b013e3182668c3d.

7. Jessica Nguyen and Eric Brymer, “Nature-Based Guided Imagery as an Intervention for State Anxiety,” Frontiers in Psychology (October 2018), https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01858. 

An Example of Visualization—Massaging Your Client’s Jaw

Imagine your client lying supine while you massage their head and neck. You notice their jaw is tight and doesn’t readily respond to the massage. This is the perfect time to use imagery to help them relax.

1. First, explore the sensations of tensing and relaxing your own jaw. As you clench your jaw, what sensations are you experiencing? What do you feel when your jaw relaxes? Do you notice other sensations in your body when your masseter releases? Perhaps your breathing eases or you notice your throat softening. Maybe your spine gets longer or your vision relaxes. You may even notice your emotions change. Describe those feelings to your client with the intention for them to experience
the same.

2. As you massage your client’s jaw, speak quietly to them:

• “Let your teeth part.” This gets them to stop clenching.

• “Feel your tongue become heavy and your throat soften.” As you say this, let your own tongue be heavy and your throat soften. Your example will help your client mimic you.

• “Let your jaw slide back toward your ear.” The masseter will soften and lengthen. Gravity will gently draw the jaw back, encouraging the muscles to loosen.

• “Let your ears fall back toward the table.” This lets the temporomandibular joint release and relax.

• “Imagine stretching to listen to the faintest sounds.” This helps your client actively participate in their unwinding.

• “Feel the skin of your face smooth. Let your face become expressionless.” This integrates the more superficial muscles of the face and scalp into the deep relaxation they are experiencing in their jaw.

3. As you continue to massage, move down to the client’s neck. Lightly traction the occiput and cervical spine. Continue guiding them:

• “Bring your next inhale low into your belly.” This brings the client’s focus away from their neck so it can relax without conscious thought.
• “Let your chin drop.” This encourages their occipital muscles and trapezius to lengthen and allows their jaw to relax further.
• “Feel your head get heavier and sink into the table.” Their head will relax back, centering over their spine.
• “Long neck. Soft gaze.” Their occipital muscles will release further.
• “Explore your exhale.” Again, have the client focus somewhere else while you gently encourage their neck to lengthen.
• “Feel a column of air extend from your belly all the way up through your spine, through your sinuses, and out your nose.” Speak slowly enough for your client to physically respond. You are showing your client the connection between the tailbone and occiput, encouraging a holistic view of their body.

4. As you massage your client and describe the sensations of relaxation, they have gone beyond only relaxing their jaw. Their head is centered on their spine. The occiput has unwound. The platysma is soft and relaxed. The cervical spine is long. They have integrated a whole-body sensation with their relaxed jaw. It’s as if the feeling of relaxing their jaw has become natural through the simple thought of lengthening their spine. They are breathing with their diaphragm. Their eyes are unfocused. Their tongue is heavy and their throat is soft. They are tall out of their spine through the crown of their head. Their jaw has released.

More Guided visualizations

www.youtube.com/watch?v=VWvh_NGg6k0

www.youtube.com/watch?v=daioE3o07hg