Massage has been used for healing for more than 5,000 years. Ancient cultures in India, China, and Egypt all practiced forms of massage, often combining physical healing with a spiritual element. Physicians in ancient Greece and Rome used massage with oils, exercise, and physical conditioning to improve health, relieve pain, and recover from injury.

Over the centuries, healers continued to refine massage. The Persian scholar Avicenna preserved much of the ancient medical knowledge during the Middle Ages, while battlefield doctors regularly used massage to help wounded soldiers recover. In the 1800s, Swedish physician Pehr Henrik Ling helped popularize massage in Europe, and Dutch physician Johan Georg Mezger named the four classic techniques still used today: effleurage, petrissage, friction, and tapotement.

Whether you seek massage for relaxation, pain relief, or simply a moment to breathe, you are in very good company. Massage has been part of human history since before the wheel, before written language, even before paper. Perhaps a weary mother carrying a toddler leaned against a stone outcrop to release a knot and ease the pain in her back, but regardless of how it came to be, massage is instinctual. Human touch was our first tool of healing, and thousands of years later, not much has changed.