Blog · frequency · 6 min

It depends on what it is for.

The spa industry answer is monthly, and it is monthly because monthly is a membership. Here is a more useful version, sorted by what you are actually trying to fix.

Stillwater / Blog / How often to come

Something hurts

Weekly, for a while

Three to six weekly sessions while you work through a specific problem, then step down. Soft tissue work compounds: each session starts from where the last one left off, and a fortnight is long enough for most of it to come back.

If six weekly sessions have not changed it, massage is not the answer and we will say so.

3–6 wk

Training hard

Fortnightly

If you run, lift, climb or ride several times a week, fortnightly deep work keeps ahead of the accumulation. Weekly is not better for most people and is a lot of money.

Time it away from your hardest sessions rather than the day after.

Every 2 wk

Stress and tension

Monthly, honestly

If nothing is injured and the goal is to be less wound up, monthly is genuinely the right answer and it is not a sales pitch. The effect of one good hour lasts most people about three weeks.

Twice a month if you can, and this is what the membership is priced for.

Monthly

Nothing in particular

When you want to

A few times a year, on your birthday, when somebody gives you a certificate. There is no schedule you are failing to keep and nothing accumulating against you.

This is a much larger share of our guests than anybody in this industry admits.

Whenever

The step-down Weekly ×4

then fortnightly
×2

then monthly

then as needed

Most people
stop somewhere
in the middle
and that is fine

Why frequent work compounds

Soft tissue that has been shortened and guarded for months does not release in one hour. It releases a bit, holds the new length for somewhere between a few days and two weeks, and then reverts most of the way if nothing else changes.

Working weekly means each session starts from a slightly better baseline than the last, and after four or five the tissue stops fully reverting between visits. That is the whole argument for frequency and it applies only while you are actively fixing something.

Once it is fixed, weekly is maintenance on a problem you no longer have.

What actually holds it

The two or three things your therapist writes down at the end. Five minutes a day of the right movement does more between sessions than the sessions do, and the people who come weekly for six months without doing any of it are, gently, buying an hour of pleasant relief rather than a solution.

Nobody here will nag you about it. But when somebody asks why the shoulder keeps coming back, that is nearly always the answer.

When we will tell you to stop coming

Pain that has not changed after six focused sessions. Anything with numbness, tingling, or pain that radiates down a limb. Anything that is worse at night than during the day. Any of those want a physiotherapist or a doctor, and a therapist who keeps rebooking you through them is doing you real harm by delay.

That conversation happens here perhaps a dozen times a year and it costs us the bookings. It is the correct trade.

The membership question, answered against ourselves

We sell a membership at two hundred and ninety-five dollars a month for two hours. It saves about twenty per cent against the door price, and it is worth it if and only if you were already coming twice a month.

If you come four times a year, it is thirty-five hundred dollars against roughly seven hundred and forty, and no amount of rolled-over hours makes that sensible. We will tell you that at the desk and we will pause a membership that is banking hours nobody is using.

The reason for saying so on our own website is straightforward: a membership somebody resents is one they cancel in April having felt slightly cheated, and we would rather have them for ten years at four visits a year.

Stillwater Day Spa·Naomi Tanaka, LMT·Updated August 2026

Asked often.

How often should you get a massage?

It depends what it is for. Weekly for three to six weeks while fixing something specific, fortnightly if you train hard, monthly for general tension, and whenever you like if nothing is wrong.

Does getting a massage more often work better?

While you are actively fixing something, yes: tissue reverts most of the way in one to two weeks, so weekly sessions each start from a better baseline. Once it is fixed, weekly is maintenance on a problem you no longer have.

When should I see a physiotherapist instead of a massage therapist?

Pain unchanged after six focused sessions, anything with numbness or tingling, pain radiating down a limb, or pain worse at night than during the day. A therapist who keeps rebooking you through those is causing harm by delay.

Is a spa membership worth the money?

Only if you were already coming twice a month. At $295 for two hours worth $370 it saves about twenty per cent; at four visits a year it is thirty-five hundred dollars against seven hundred and forty.

However often suits you.

There is no schedule you are failing to keep. Book when it is useful and not because a month has passed.

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