Having your body worked on and manually relaxed is a great way to keep it healthy.  It is important for the muscles in one’s body to be stimulated so they can stay alive and active.  One way to do this is exercise, which is important for making the muscles stronger and more defined.  However, there are some spots that exercise can’t reach, and if your muscles are very sore, you couldn’t exercise in the first place.  This is where massages come in to play.  They prep your muscles for more intensive stimulation and help them relax after it.  An ideal time to get a massage would be after activity, as it would immediately relieve any discomfort felt from the workout.

Massages inherently relieve stress in the recipient, as most of their focus is on the sensations being given from the massage.  It seems all problems melt away during a good massage, and that is a very magnificent feeling to have, and even better to give.  More importantly, having stress relieved is just as important to one’s health as the muscles being revitalized.  Stress is a significant contributor to a number of deadly diseases, so with a lower level of stress, you have a smaller chance of contracting something unwanted.  One should never expect all stress to ever be removed from their lives, as certain stress, known as eustress, is actually good for you.

After a relatively long massage, one usually feels generally refreshed and reinvigorated.  The world can be a very draining place sometimes, and those extra bursts of energy are quite helpful, and are certainly much more beneficial than the short-term gain from something like an energy drink.  Energy derived from within the body is better than it gained via an external source.  Getting a weekly massage is a way to help you keep your energy perpetually up, along with other factors such as proper diet and regular exercise.

Another important attribute of the foot massage is its ability to heal the body beyond just the foot.  Some believe that a properly executed foot massage yields a full-body relaxation, but this belief is based on reflexology and has little proven efficacy.

Before commencing the massage, it is important to have the feet be wet, whether with water or some other soaking preparation.  After they are soft, you can use many different techniques to induce pleasurable feelings.

An easy technique involves holding the back of one’s foot and rotating your hand around it continuously, while periodically reversing direction.  The rotations and reversals enable long-lasting stimulation, and it is not too difficult on the giver.

Another simple maneuver is repeatedly stroking the foot with both hands.  You want to apply a good amount of pressure as you slide each hand down the foot, and just keep putting one hand in front of the other as you move, as if climbing a rope.  You can apply variable pressure to further spice up the technique, although a medium level is fine if you want to keep stable.

There are many things you can do with a few fingers rather than your whole hand.  For example, you can use your thumb or forefinger to move up and down the foot, and this linear motion is very relaxing.  You can also do elaborate patterns that make the massage more interesting and indulgent.

After focusing on the foot, you should also pay some attention to the toes.  Some people like having their toes pulled and cracked, but that comes down to personal preference.  Rubbing the toes lightly is a great supplement to a foot massage, and is also much easier than focusing on a larger area.

Since foot massages are so easy to perform, you can usually find a friend or significant other to do it for free.  It is definitely a lot easier and cheaper than finding massage services, but those can be good for other, more complex procedures.