It happens every time… You come out of your massage (feeling rather fantastic), and your therapist asks you how you feel. They tell you where they found the most tension, and what you can do to help it.
Then they say: “Make sure you drink plenty of water tonight.” Do you listen?
I have had so many clients come to me a few days following their massage session and tell me they felt sick for a day or two after with a headache, flu-like symptoms, or fatigue. The truth is that these are very common side effects of a therapeutic massage because massage acts as a form of detoxification.
Massage stimulates the fluid flow throughout your body. This includes, but is not limited to, lymph flow. Your lymphatic system is primarily responsible for flushing toxins through your body to keep you from getting sick.
Sometimes when you are under physical, emotional, or chemical stress, the lymphatic system can become stagnant. Since massage increases the flow of the lymph fluid, the fluid pushes these stagnant toxins through the system, causing the symptoms of detox or sickness to rear their ugly heads.
Water helps to flush these toxins from your body, so you are less likely to feel the effects.
So the next time your therapist reminds you to drink PLENTY of water, remember that the water plays an instrumental role in the body’s ability to detox, and may keep those pesky post-treatment symptoms at bay.
