Can Massage Chairs Reduce Fatigue? They Can, Here’s How

Massage chairs, just like massages, can help you reduce fatigue. You probably already know that they bring some form of health benefits, but perhaps you’re not fully convinced of what it can do. How can a massage chair reduce fatigue in the first place anyways?

In this blog, I’ll break down how a massage chair reduces fatigue, then give some detailed examples on what happens step by step to help reduce fatigue.

TLDR: Massage chairs help reduce fatigue by promoting dilation in your blood vessels, which essentially means to help widen, and enlargen your blood vessels. When this happens, it becomes easier for blood to flow through your body, and help oxygenate your cells, which brings the feeling of reducing fatigue.

But there’s more than just this simple summary.

Allow me to introduce you to the concept of how massage chairs improve circulation within the body.

Massage Chairs Can Reduce Fatigue by Increasing Your Body’s Circulation

When you get a massage, you’re being pressed down on your body. When your muscles are pressed, the blood vessels within begin to loosen, and they undergo dilation (Nelson, 2015).  

What this means is that as they keep getting pressed, the blood vessels become looser, and expand and widen. Once wider, these blood vessels can now allow more blood to flow through them, achieving increased circulation.

Did that sound a bit confusing?

Honestly, it took me 45 minutes to understand what it was before I wrote this, so here’s an analogy that might help simplify it.

Imagine pressing down a balloon softly. As you press down, the air pushes away from the center, and goes to the sides. This exact motion is replicated in the massage chair when it presses on your muscles, with the blood being pushed to the side.

As you continue pressing on the balloon, the balloon warms up, and can be pushed more, allowing more air to enter the sides of the balloon.

This is the process of dilation occurring in your muscles.  

The reason why massage chairs specialize at increasing circulation within the body is because it not only helps achieve dilation, but also does so systematically, targeting specific body parts in a sequence to guide the blood throughout the body with ease (Sefton et al., 2010).

As a result, your body now has increased blood flow, which helps the oxygen in your blood reach the rest of your body quicker. This oxygenation, which is now quicker than before, helps re-energise your cells, and reduce your fatigue.

While this was a very brief description of how a massage chair works to help increase blood circulation around the body, here’s an even better video on how massage therapy helps improve blood circulation by a YouTuber named MPC Alternative TV, if you’re interested, do watch this to learn more!

What Other Benefits Does a Massage Chair Have to Help Reduce Fatigue?

I’ll once again mention the benefits of blood circulation, because there’s genuinely so much!

When you achieve better blood circulation with a massage chair, there’s three main things that happen:

1. Your blood gets more oxygen from the increased blood flow, helping your cells create more energy, and feeling less fatigued
2. Your blood helps clean out some of the toxins and carbon dioxide that is stored within the cells. This is especially important if you’re feeling fatigued, as this waste often makes you feel very drained and tired.
3. Your blood carries the nutrients which you’ve consumed from your food. To nourish your muscles, and to help them recover, it’s important that your cells also get the nutrients they need.

With these three benefits, it’s easy to see why blood circulation can help you reduce fatigue. When massage chairs are designed specifically to increase blood circulation, they aim to help reduce your fatigue, and make you feel much more relaxed.

Case Study: The OGAWA Master Drive Plus Massage Chair’s Circulation Massage Mode

Let me show you a massage chair in action, and how it works to help increase circulation. In addition to the dilation I mentioned above, a massage chair has the added capability to tilt your body in the way it needs to further aid blood flow.

Let’s have a look at how the OGAWA Master Drive Plus Massage Chair performs its blood circulation mode:

In these photos, we can see the four phases of how it starts. When you hop into a massage chair and choose the circulation mode, one of the first phases it enters is the raised leg recline mode.

This results in your legs being lifted to around your heart level, helping the blood flow towards your heart easier. In addition, the leg part of the massage chair will start using its airbags to squeeze the calves and feet, pushing the blood down towards your heart.

As a result, the Master Drive Plus massage chair helps reduce as much strain on your body required to pump blood, and uses airbags which are pressed sequentially to help the blood flow towards your heart the easiest.

Conclusion: Massage Chairs Are a Great Way to Reduce Fatigue in Your Body

With a massage chair that has specialised massage modes aimed to help blood circulation in your body, there’s no doubt that a massage chair can reduce your fatigue.

In addition to the physical benefits listed above, reducing fatigue is a great way to help relax, and feel full of energy again.

Looking at it this way, a massage chair is very similar to an in-home masseuse. I’d even argue it’s better than one!

I’ve written a blog about how having a massage chair is actually a cost-effective investment for your health, so if you’re considering buying a massage chair, why not check it out first?

References

Nelson, N. L. (2015). Massage therapy: Understanding the mechanisms of action on blood pressure. A scoping review. Journal of the American Society of Hypertension, 9(10), 785–793. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jash.2015.07.009

Sefton, J. E. M., Yarar, C., Berry, J. W., & Pascoe, D. D. (2010). Therapeutic massage of the neck and shoulders produces changes in peripheral blood flow when assessed with dynamic infrared thermography. The Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine, 16(7), 723–732. https://doi.org/10.1089/acm.2009.0441