Everyone deals with aches and pains, but not everyone has the time or cash for a professional massage. Here are 11 massages you can do to yourself that will leave you feeling so good.
BuzzFeed Life spoke to Sulyn Silbar, ACSM-certified personal trainer and founder of Body + Mind NYC, and Luke Bongiorno, physical therapy director of NY SportsMed & Physical Therapy, who recommended these simple self-massages. You can do some with your hands only, while others require the aid of a tennis ball or foam roller — but all are super easy and only take a few minutes, no professional required.
1. If your feet are killing you:
2. If you suffer from tension headaches:
This will relieve tension in your neck and head often caused by crappy posture — like when you crane your neck while texting or push your head forward when slumping at a desk.
Here's how to do it:
1. Lie on your back with your legs bent.
3. Holding a tennis ball in each hand between your thumb and forefinger, rest your hands behind your head so the tennis balls are on either side of the base of your skull.
4. Alternate between shaking your head from side to side, then tucking and lifting your chin.
3. If PMS is making your lower back hurt:
This will help the tenderness and pain you get in your lower back before and during your period due to inflammation.
Here's how to do it:
1. Lie on your back with your legs bent and feet firmly planted on the ground.
2. Place two tennis balls under your lower back around where your sacrum — the large, triangular bone at the base of the spine — meets your hip bone.
3. Raise and lower your hips, kneading the area with the tennis balls.
4. If you have a tight, painful jaw in the morning:
Clenching when you're stressed can give you a headache and a sore jaw. Do this right when you wake up or when you're feeling anxious.
Here's how to do it:
1. Using the pads of your fingertips, press up under your cheekbones, starting at the apples of your cheeks.
2. Open and close your mouth as you press up into your cheekbones.
3. Do this all the way back, following an imaginary beard line.
4. When you reach your sideburns, press your thumb under your jawbone and pull your fingertips down the side of your face.
5. Repeat movement along your jaw, moving toward your chin.
6. Finally, grab chin and pull the skin down between your thumbs and fingertips.
5. If your knees get sore from sitting at a desk all day:
This will work out the bound connective tissue fibers called fascia — aka what you probably think of as knots — that form when your legs are bent for too long.
Here's how to do it:
1. While sitting, unbend your leg and let it rest so the muscles in your quad are soft.
2. Press into where it hurts with a fingertip or a knuckle and massage in a star shape for 10 seconds.
3. Bend and straighten your knee twice.
4. Repeat 2–3 times for each place it hurts.
6. If your butt is sore from all that sitting:
7. If your forearms are sore:
8. If your legs and knees hurt after walking, running, or scaling stairs:
If you're on the move a lot, you probably experience tightness in your IT band, the tissue that runs from the side of your hip all of the way down past your knee. Instead of rolling directly on your side, which can be painful, come at it from an angle instead.
Here's how to do it:
1. Lie on your side with your foam roller under your hip.
2. Using your hands to brace you, slowly roll down from your hip to your knee, rotating your body toward the ground as you go.
3. Roll back into the starting position.
9. If your neck and shoulders hurt:
Attempting to give yourself a neck or shoulder massage with your hands actually leads to more tension, even if it feels good at the time. Try this instead.
Here's how to do it:
1. Stand with a tennis ball between the wall and your shoulder.
2. Raise your arm above your head and shift your head from side to side.
3. Experiment with the ball in different positions along your neck and shoulders.
10. If you ache from slouching in front of your computer:
11. If you just want a head massage that feels so. good.
