Massage And Happiness
Why A Massage Can Help You Be Happier - The Physiological, Psychological And Social Reasons
We see it all the time.
Someone arrives for their massage with their shoulders somewhere near their ears, talking quickly, thinking about six different things at once.
An hour later they're lying there looking slightly dazed, smiling and saying something along the lines of, “I don't want to move.”
After more than 20 years of massage, we've come to recognise what we jokingly call the just-been-massaged look.
But what's actually going on?
Is feeling happier after a massage simply because having a massage feels nice, or are there measurable changes happening in your body and brain as well?
Researchers have been asking versions of that question for decades. The evidence isn't quite as simple as some of the claims you see online — massage doesn't appear to just flick a magical “happy hormone” switch — but there is some genuinely interesting research around massage, anxiety, mood, sleep, touch and social connection.
And some of it helps explain what we've been seeing on our massage tables for years.
1. Why Does Massage Make You Feel So Good?
We see it all the time — what we like to call the just-been-massaged look.
You know the one. You're lying on the massage table afterwards, feeling slightly sleepy, very relaxed and not particularly interested in getting up and returning to the real world.
And it turns out there are some pretty interesting things happening in your body while you're being massaged that may help explain why you feel so good afterwards.
One of them involves your nervous system.
Your autonomic nervous system helps regulate things you don't consciously control, including your heart rate, breathing and your body's response to stress. Research suggests that moderate-pressure massage can encourage what's known as parasympathetic activity — the side of the nervous system associated with rest, recovery and relaxation.
In one randomized study from the University of Miami School of Medicine, researchers measured heart-rate variability while people received either moderate-pressure or light-pressure massage. The moderate-pressure massage produced changes consistent with increased parasympathetic activity.
Another randomized controlled study found increases in heart-rate variability following massage, again suggesting changes in the way the autonomic nervous system was regulating the body.
And it's not just something researchers can measure on a machine.
A controlled study of healthy women found that even a short massage increased how relaxed participants said they felt and reduced their reported stress. Interestingly, simply resting helped too — which is a useful reminder that taking time to stop is probably part of what makes a massage feel so good.
And What About All Those “Happy Hormones”?
This is where things get particularly interesting — and also where you'll find some fairly wild claims about massage on the internet.
Researchers at the Touch Research Institutes at the University of Miami School of Medicine reviewed massage studies that measured cortisol, serotonin and dopamine. Across the studies they examined, cortisol decreased by an average of about 31%, while serotonin increased by around 28% and dopamine by around 31%.
Another study involving women experiencing depression during pregnancy found lower anxiety and depressed mood following massage sessions and, by the end of the study, higher serotonin and dopamine and lower cortisol and norepinephrine in the massage group.
There is also research into oxytocin, sometimes nicknamed the “bonding hormone”. A randomized study involving 95 people at UCLA found that 15 minutes of moderate-pressure massage increased oxytocin compared with simply resting quietly.
So there is genuine science behind the idea that massage can affect some of the chemical and nervous-system processes associated with how we feel.
But it's not quite as simple as saying massage increases your happy hormones.
Not every study has found the same biochemical effects. In fact, a large meta-analysis of 37 randomized massage studies found clear evidence for reductions in immediate anxiety, heart rate and blood pressure after a single massage, but didn't find a significant overall cortisol effect. Repeated massage treatments were associated with reductions in trait anxiety and depression.
That's why we'd rather say the research is promising and fascinating than pretend scientists have completely worked out why you feel so good after a massage.
After more than 20 years of massage, though, there's one result we don't need a laboratory to recognise.
That just-been-massaged look is very real.
Massage Can Help Reduce Anxiety
One of the things people say to us most often after a massage is:
“I didn't realise how tense I was until I relaxed.”
And that makes a lot of sense. You can become so used to rushing around, thinking about the next thing and carrying tension in your body that it starts to feel normal.
Massage gives you permission to stop.
No phone. No emails. No washing that needs folding. No feeling that you should be doing something productive.
And research suggests that the change people feel isn't just in their imagination.
A large meta-analysis of 37 randomized massage studies found that even a single massage was associated with a reduction in what's called state anxiety — essentially, how anxious or tense someone feels at that particular moment. When massage was given repeatedly over a period of time, the researchers also found reductions in longer-term anxiety and symptoms of depression.
There has also been some particularly interesting research from Emory University School of Medicine.
Researchers took 47 people who had been diagnosed with generalised anxiety disorder and randomly assigned them to either Swedish massage or a light-touch treatment twice a week for six weeks.
Both groups improved, but the people receiving Swedish massage had a significantly greater reduction in their anxiety scores. The difference started showing up after about three weeks of treatment.
The researchers later looked at what happened when Swedish massage continued for another six weeks.
That doesn't mean massage should replace proper medical or psychological care for someone experiencing an anxiety disorder.
And not every study has found massage to be better than simply taking time out to relax. In another randomized study involving 68 people with generalised anxiety disorder, massage, heat therapy and simply relaxing in a quiet room all substantially reduced anxiety, with no significant difference between the three groups.
We actually think that's interesting in itself.
Perhaps part of the benefit of massage is the massage itself, and part of it is something much simpler that many of us aren't particularly good at anymore:
Stopping.
For an hour, there's nowhere else you need to be and nothing you're expected to do.
After more than 20 years of massaging people, we've watched plenty of clients arrive talking at a hundred miles an hour and leave speaking considerably more slowly.
Science might call that a reduction in state anxiety.
We usually just call it finally switching off.
What About Cortisol, Serotonin and Dopamine?
If you've ever Googled the benefits of massage, you've probably come across claims that massage reduces cortisol and increases serotonin and dopamine.
There actually is research behind those claims.
One of the most frequently cited papers comes from researchers at the Touch Research Institutes at the University of Miami School of Medicine. They reviewed studies that had measured these chemicals before and after massage therapy.
Across the studies they reviewed, cortisol levels fell by an average of around 31%, while serotonin increased by around 28% and dopamine by around 31%.
Those are pretty impressive numbers.
And they help explain why the idea that massage changes our “feel-good chemicals” has become so widely repeated.
So What Do These Chemicals Actually Do?
Cortisol is one of the hormones involved in the body's stress response. It isn't a “bad” hormone — we need it — but cortisol levels change in response to stress and many other factors.
Serotonin is a chemical messenger involved in a huge range of functions, including mood, sleep and appetite.
And dopamine is involved in reward, motivation, attention, movement and pleasure. It's often called a “feel-good chemical”, although—as usual—the biology is considerably more complicated than the nickname suggests.
So it's certainly interesting that researchers have measured changes in these chemicals following massage.
But there's a catch.
The Cortisol Story Isn't Quite as Simple as We Once Thought
As more massage research accumulated, researchers started looking at whether those cortisol findings held up across larger numbers of studies.
A later quantitative review examined 18 studies involving 704 participants and found that massage's overall effect on cortisol was generally very small and not statistically significant.
The researchers concluded that massage's benefits were unlikely to be explained by a large reduction in cortisol alone.
Another meta-analysis of 37 randomized massage studies reached a similar conclusion. A single massage was associated with reductions in things such as anxiety, heart rate and blood pressure, but not a significant overall reduction in cortisol.
That doesn't mean the earlier research was “wrong”, or that cortisol never changes after massage.
Different studies have involved different people, different massage techniques, different treatment lengths and different ways of measuring cortisol.
What it does mean is that we probably shouldn't say:
“Massage makes you feel good because it lowers cortisol by 31%.”
The human body is considerably more complicated than that.
What About Serotonin and Dopamine?
There's published research reporting increases in serotonin and dopamine following massage, including the University of Miami review mentioned above. Later massage research reviews have continued to discuss biochemical and nervous-system changes as possible mechanisms behind some of massage's effects.
But the evidence here isn't strong enough for us to tell every client that their massage has definitely given them a 28% serotonin boost and 31% dopamine boost.
Those numbers came from a particular body of research; they aren't a guaranteed biological response to every massage.
And really, we don't need to make that claim.
The broader research we've looked at shows something rather more useful: people frequently report feeling less anxious and more relaxed after massage, and researchers can also measure changes in things such as heart rate, blood pressure and autonomic nervous-system activity.
So perhaps the famous serotonin, dopamine and cortisol figures are one interesting part of the story rather than the whole explanation.
After more than 20 years of giving massages, we don't need to take a blood sample to know that something changes between the person who gets onto our table and the person who eventually decides they're willing to get off it.
Exactly why they feel so good afterwards?
Science is still working that bit out.
Massage May Help You Sleep Better
Ever had a massage and then felt like you could quite happily sleep for the next three hours?
You're definitely not alone.
Feeling sleepy after a massage is something we see all the time. Some clients are asleep before we've even finished the treatment — and yes, snoring is completely acceptable on a Ripple massage table.
There is also growing research suggesting that massage may help with sleep, although—as with most massage research—the results vary depending on who is being studied and the type of massage being given.
A systematic review of randomized controlled trials looking at massage and sleep in cancer survivors found that massage was associated with improvements in self-reported sleep quality. Some studies also used activity monitors rather than simply asking people how they slept and found increases in longer periods of uninterrupted sleep. Interestingly for us locally, one of the researchers involved in that review was from Bond University on the Gold Coast, along with researchers from several other universities.
Another systematic review and meta-analysis looked at 10 randomized controlled trials involving 569 people in critical-care settings. It found improvements in subjective sleep quality with some forms of massage, particularly foot reflexology. The researchers did caution that the overall quality of the evidence was low, so it's another promising result rather than proof that massage is a cure for poor sleep.
And there's some interesting newer research as well.
In 2025, researchers from the University of Thessaly studied people who were already poor sleepers. They monitored brain activity using EEG while participants received either relaxation massage, sports massage or no massage.
After the relaxation massage, participants reported feeling more relaxed and they entered the first stage of sleep more quickly than under the other conditions. It was only a small study of 15 people, so we wouldn't make enormous claims from it, but it's an interesting glimpse at what may actually be happening when someone becomes sleepy after a massage.
So why might massage and sleep go together?
It's probably not one single thing.
The changes in nervous-system activity we talked about earlier may play a part. Feeling physically comfortable may help. Having an hour where you're not looking at a screen, answering messages or thinking about the next thing on your list probably doesn't hurt either.
And sometimes the explanation might be much simpler.
You're warm. You're comfortable. The room is quiet. Someone has been massaging you for an hour and nobody is asking you to do anything.
Your body finally gets the message:
You can stop now.
We can't promise that having a massage will fix a sleep problem, and the scientific evidence isn't strong enough to say that it will.
But if you find yourself struggling to keep your eyes open at the end of your Ripple massage, you're certainly not the only one.
And if you've booked your massage at home or while you're away for the weekend, there's another considerable advantage:
you don't have to drive anywhere afterwards.
You can stay exactly where you are — and if that turns into an afternoon nap, we certainly won't judge you.
Touch, Oxytocin and Feeling Connected
There's another part of massage that we don't talk about nearly enough: human touch.
We're naturally tactile creatures. We hug people we love, hold someone's hand when they're upset, cuddle our children and put an arm around a friend without really thinking about why we do it.
It turns out our bodies have some pretty interesting systems devoted specifically to experiencing touch.
Researchers have identified specialised nerve fibres in the skin called C-tactile fibres. Unlike the nerves that help you work out exactly where you've been touched, these fibres appear particularly responsive to slow, gentle touch — the sort of touch people tend to describe as pleasant. Research into these fibres has led to an entire field known as affective touch.
In other words, our nervous system doesn't just register that we're being touched.
It also seems to register how that touch feels emotionally.
And This Is Where Oxytocin Comes In
Oxytocin is sometimes called the “love hormone” or “bonding hormone”, although—as we've already discovered with serotonin and dopamine—our bodies are considerably more complicated than catchy hormone nicknames suggest.
Oxytocin is involved in social behaviour, attachment and bonding, as well as a number of other functions in the body.
And there is evidence that massage can affect it.
In a randomized study involving 95 adults, researchers compared 15 minutes of moderate-pressure massage with simply resting quietly. They found a significantly greater increase in oxytocin following the massage.
Scientists have also proposed a possible connection between those C-tactile fibres we mentioned earlier and oxytocin. These fibres respond particularly well to gentle, slow stroking, and researchers think they may be one of the pathways through which pleasant touch contributes to some of the social and calming effects associated with oxytocin. That's an interesting theory with supporting evidence, rather than something science has completely nailed down.
Touch and Connection
Perhaps even more interesting is what happens when researchers look at touch between people rather than simply measuring hormones.
One study followed 102 dating couples in their everyday lives. Both partners recorded their experiences four times a day for a week.
More touch between partners was associated with greater feelings of intimacy and more positive mood.
The researchers also found that people who experienced more touch during that week reported better psychological wellbeing when they were followed up six months later.
There's even some research specifically involving massage between couples.
Researchers at Northumbria University in the UK taught couples to massage one another over a three-week period. They found that both the person receiving the massage and the person giving it experienced improvements in wellbeing during the massage sessions.
Further research from the same university found improvements in wellbeing, perceived stress and coping among couples taking part in a massage programme, while participants in a later qualitative study talked about massage giving them quality time together, pleasurable touch, gratitude and a sense of deeper connection.
Now, we're certainly not suggesting that booking a couples massage is some sort of relationship therapy.
But after more than 20 years of massage, we've seen something rather lovely happen with couples.
They arrive talking about where they're going for dinner, what time they have to check out, where they left the car keys and who's forgotten to bring something.
Then the phones go away.
Nobody has to organise anything.
And for a while, they simply stop together.
Maybe oxytocin plays a part. Maybe our specialised touch receptors play a part. Maybe it's the quiet, the time together and the simple experience of being cared for.
Most likely, it's a combination of many things.
But science is increasingly showing us something humans have probably known for a very long time:
positive touch matters.
And sometimes an hour spent doing absolutely nothing together can be surprisingly good for both of you.
Can Massage Actually Help Your Brain Work Better?
Here's one we weren't expecting when we started looking through the research.
Could having a massage actually make you more alert and better at concentrating afterwards?
Researchers at the Touch Research Institute at the University of Miami School of Medicine investigated exactly that.
In the study, 50 adults were divided into two groups. Twenty-six received a 15-minute chair massage twice a week for five weeks, while 24 simply sat and relaxed in the massage chair for the same amount of time.
The researchers didn't just ask people how they felt. They measured their brain activity using EEG and gave them maths problems to complete before and after the sessions.
After massage, participants completed the maths calculations faster and more accurately, while the people who had simply rested didn't show the same improvement.
The EEG measurements also showed changes that the researchers interpreted as increased alertness following massage. Anxiety decreased in the massage group as well.
That's fascinating — but we wouldn't go cancelling your morning coffee just yet.
It was a relatively small study, and it was published back in 1996. We haven't found enough high-quality research since then to say that massage generally improves cognitive performance.
But it does challenge the idea that relaxation necessarily means becoming mentally sluggish.
You can feel deeply relaxed and still emerge feeling clearer and more alert.
And that's something clients have been telling us for years.
Sometimes after a massage you feel ready for a nap.
And sometimes you get off the table feeling as though somebody has pressed the reset button.
So, Can a Massage Really Make You Happier?
After looking at all this research, the answer isn't quite as simple as:
Massage = happy hormones = happiness.
Human beings are far more complicated than that.
Some of the claims that have been repeated about massage for years — particularly dramatic reductions in cortisol or predictable increases in serotonin and dopamine — aren't as firmly established as they're sometimes presented.
But that doesn't mean the benefits people report after massage aren't real.
Across the research we've looked at, there is evidence that massage can reduce immediate feelings of anxiety, and repeated massage has been associated with reductions in longer-term anxiety and depressive symptoms. A major meta-analysis of 37 randomized studies found reductions in state anxiety, heart rate and blood pressure after individual massage sessions, with some of the largest effects of repeated massage seen for trait anxiety and depression.
We've also seen research suggesting changes in the autonomic nervous system, interesting findings around oxytocin and positive touch, possible improvements in sleep in some groups, and even that intriguing little study suggesting people may be more alert afterwards.
None of that proves that massage can manufacture happiness.
And we certainly wouldn't suggest massage is a substitute for medical or psychological care when somebody needs it.
But perhaps happiness doesn't always need to be explained by one chemical in the brain.
Sometimes feeling better might come from a whole collection of much smaller things happening at once.
Your breathing slows down.
Your muscles aren't quite so tight.
Your phone is somewhere you can't reach it.
Nobody wants anything from you.
You're warm.
You're being looked after.
And for an hour or two, you've been given permission to do absolutely nothing.
After more than 20 years of massage, we've watched thousands of people get off our massage tables looking noticeably different from when they got on.
Science is gradually helping us understand some of the reasons why.
But our favourite explanation is still considerably simpler:
Sometimes a really good massage just makes you feel good.
And we think that's a pretty good reason to have one.
