Paying for a Massage

 

There are payment fees for massage. This is not a discussion about costs, though it is related to spending.

Shoppers, purchasers, users of services, etc, are known as consumers. The term consumption, a possible derivative, can relate to spending. 

There is conspicuous consumption, described by Thorstein Veblen, a Norwegian-American economist and sociologist, (1857-1929, see picture below), where purchases of goods or displays of wealth are made, intending that others will see them and appreciate them. We do what we wish with our money, of course, though Veblen calls this type of consumption wasteful.

 

There is inconspicuous consumption, described by Elizabeth Currid-Halkett, an American academic and author (see picture below), where there is lifestyle-related consumption of things which show people’s cultural standing. Some of these things are the type of education pursued, eating organic foods or doing yoga.

When having a massage, waxing, threading, or any beauty treatment, you will be a client or a customer, for example. You give the masseur your custom for his services. It’s all made a pleasant experience we trust, so that you will wish to return again – and maybe many times!

Come along to ‘consume’ some massage or whatever treatment soon.

 

 

 

Get the Message: Come for a Massage

 

 

You will know the address of your friendly masseur when you visit for a massage or other treatment. There are addresses also in computing, such as e-mail addresses, and IP (Internet Protocol) addresses.

 

Computing may relate, if indirectly so, to massage and other treatments, in the area of time. There is a way on computers to call up to see how quickly messages are getting through. These are timed in milliseconds (ms). You won’t be charged for massage by the millisecond though! We won’t notice any delays in transmissions of messages though, e.g. 20 ms is longer than 5 ms, but both are the time of the blink of an eye, or quicker.

 

From one extreme to the other, from minute, in this case meaning less than the 60 second ‘minute’, to fantastically enormous. There is an IP version 6, vastly greater than the IP version 4, though both are in use today. I don’t know if there is or was an IP version 5.

 

A computer whizz-kid could go into all the explanation of this here – but I’m not one. But to say, the IP version 6 is capable of producing many more addresses. It’s an understatement of the year, or of the century even, to say version 6 is ‘quite’ larger than version 4.

 

IP version 4 can give 2 to the power of 32 addresses, which is a bit under 5 thousand million. IP version 6 can give 2 to the power of 128 addresses, which is a number more than there are grains of the sand, and more massage visits than is humanly imaginable – linking in massage here, so as not to digress completely.

 

There is a quote by technology and marketing consultant Steve Leibson, that is mind-boggling: ‘We could assign an IP version 6 address to every atom on the surface of the earth and still have enough to cover over 100 more earths. It is not remotely likely that we will run out of IP version 6 addresses at any time in the future.’

 

Come along for a massage, waxing, threading, or whatever treatment you wish, hopefully finding it mind-boggling in pleasant and enjoyable ways.

 

Is a hot massage better than a cold massage?

 

  

You may experience degrees of heat and cold during massage or other treatments.

 

But this is not to the extreme of a treatment such as a cryosauna session, where one is subjected to temperatures of minus 100C or more. It is short and sweet, or short and sharp, or both, as it is only for a maximum of three minutes. Some people may have less time of one or two minutes.

 

With it being far colder than brass-monkey weather, it is said by some to be refreshing and revitalising, and more of a ‘dry chill’ as if being in a freezer, than outdoors in a blizzard, for example.  It may not be for everyone though, and checks are made, as they are with certain treatments that your friendly masseur offers.

Whether you’re a Winter or Summer person, or whatever season, there is likely to be the warm atmosphere of the masseur’s home, and of his amiable personality, as well as heat in some of the treatments, e.g. hot stone massage.

 

Some other sporting treatment involves players alternating between cold and hot baths, though the cold bath is above freezing point and the hot bath is not at boiling point. If it were, it could be as a story of 40 martyrs in Armenia, sentenced in 320AD to freeze to death unclothed outdoors overnight. A person pitied them, and took the place of one of the group. The one seemingly saved from a cold death immediately jumped into a hot bath and died from the shock of it.

Come and be warmed and heated, or maybe cooled if you are emotionally over-heated through too much stress, etc, and have a massage or other treatment as you wish.

 

Are you on the fence about a massage?

 

Are you on the fence or hedging your bets about a massage?     

Is this you perhaps, re massage?

With communication, there are hedging words and boosting words. Hedging words are softer, tentative, indefinite, etc, such as:

 

‘I may have a waxing soon.’

‘Perhaps I shall go for a threading next week.’

‘I might enquire about a hot stone massage shortly.’

‘I’m not sure, but am curious about a Swedish massage.’

 

                              Sitting on the fence can be uncomfortable

Boosting words are more definite, expressing one’s own views, preferences, desires, etc, such as:

 

‘I will have an Indian head massage next time.’

‘I must have a waxing for my legs/arms/etc soon.’

‘I am confident that a sports massage will be helpful.’

‘I shall not put off a facial treatment any longer.’

 

Note the unsubtle references to the masseur’s services in these examples! There is no forcing or pressuring to have a massage other treatment, of course. It is entirely client’s own choices. 

Though if sitting on the hedge (or fence) over it, and using hedging words, or umm-ing and ahh-ing over it, you may wish to take as decisive step, and so feel boosted, satisfied, uplifted, when you have had a treatment.

                                               more than a hedge

Not to put words into client’s mouths, though hopefully, you will express boosting-type words, such as:

 

‘Wonderful massage; best I’ve ever had.’

‘Full of praise and appreciation for a fine masseur’.

‘Well worth the visit; homely, friendly, supportive.’

‘I can’t find any fault in this – not that I want to!’

 

You as the client say these things, so that it is boosting by you, and not an ego-trip or boasting by the masseur. Yet it can help to give the masseur added publicity and enhancement of his services.  

See you soon possibly, for massage or whatever treatment you choose.

Waxing Lyrical

No, not a poem, or literary composition! But if you are considering a waxing, you may encounter an old friend, serotonin, the happy hormone’ or ‘feel-good hormone’.  

You may also, if not use to waxing, experience the ‘fight flight, or freeze’ response, yet not to paint it as a torturous experience, as therapists will do their best to reassure you, and make things as painless as possible.

There are, in the medical world, cats and pets! These are: Computerised Axial Tomography (CAT) and Positron Emission Tomography (PET) scans. We trust waxing won’t feel like being scratched by a cat or other pets that can scratch.

We can also help ourselves if being a nervous client preparing for waxing, by using things such as breathing techniques to calm ourselves. Hopefully it will be minimal ‘pain’ to ‘gain’, as the saying goes, leading to an aesthetic and pleasing result. There are various areas that can be waxed, as listed on the website here.

Take a step, or a plunge maybe, to try a first waxing, or another step if having a course of waxing over a few sessions. Some things that we may be anxious or worried about can turn out to be less worrying, or with no worries, when actually doing them. We may spend more time, energy, etc in anxiety before the event!

Come along for a waxing if you wish. Give it a whirl maybe, then give a twirl, when you show the wonderful (we trust) outcome of your experience.

 

How is the Massage for EU?

 

It’s a slight link to massage, though recalling a previous blog (18 May 2021), this brings in the ‘eu’ prefix again.  It will be stating the opposite in this blog, in mentioning eugenics. The ‘eu’ part means ‘good’. The ‘genics’ part refers to genes, so ‘good genes’. And maybe so, if you are named Eugene!

 

But eugenics is not good in aiming to improve the genetic quality of humans by leaving out those considered inferior. The categories of people that are left out, such as special needs, low IQ, learning disability, disabled in any way, etc, is totally unjustifiable. It surely only adds to their difficulties, brought about originally through no fault of their own. The same could apply with eugenics and animals.

 

It does not matter, or matter so much, with plants, though it could be messing about too much with ecosystems, the environment, etc.

 

Eugenics relating to humans has been linked with terms of scientific racism, sometimes called biological racism. We may think this is all in the dark ages of centuries ago, but no. The term was coined late in history really, from around 1904. It brings in many moral and ethical concerns surely, consigning some people to the rubbish heap, including preventing them from having children even, so that in the eugenicist’s view no more ‘sub-standard’ people should be born.

 

Yet it is they who are ‘sub-standard’ one could say. In their attempts to improve on fellow humans lives, the practice of eugenics becomes a horrible evil.

 

Here are pictured of Francis Galton (1822-1911), a supporter of eugenics

 and G.K. Chesterton (1874-1936), an opponent of eugenics. 

With massage or whatever treatment, eu (you), to repeat a quip, will hopefully have a good time.

 

 

Are you a ‘good sport’ for massage?

     

There is an approach to treating sports injuries, or injuries through exercise, which is called the biopsychosocial approach. This differs from the approach taken, maybe more so in the past, which is called the biomedical approach. The former approach considers biological, psychological, and social matters, while the latter only considers biological matters.

There is some research which speaks of the benefits of having many ‘teams’ involved in helping people with injuries to recover. In some cases we may add: if we can afford them all! 

They can be put into two ‘teams’: primary teams, such as physiotherapists, and physicians/surgeons/GPs; and secondary teams, with a variety, including psychiatrists, sports psychologists, nutritionists, and massage therapists, to name but a few.

This is where your friendly masseur comes in, though you may not feel they are so ‘friendly’ if having Sports Massage. Yet it is for good, as they seek to get to the roots of things, such as relieving muscle tensions, and aches and pains of stresses, but not meant as torturous. That costs extra, as a previous Blog pic says!

If massage is one of the secondary teams it is surely nonetheless effective and positive, and its validity as a treatment is not of any less quality. It’s called part of a holistic (whole-listic) approach, covering things of body (physical), soul/spirit (psychological), and help socially from others such as friends, family, fellow athletes or exercise group members, etc.

 

When massage services resume in the New Year, come along for a treatment, massage or whatever, maybe as a new year pursuit, continuing with sessions, or as a first experience of it.