Fire In The Hole!: Stomach Sounds and Flatulence During Massage

It’s been another one of those weeks. Your boss has been on your case, the kids are yelling, your significant other is crabby and no matter how much you clean it, your house is always a mess. Time for a massage!

After arriving for your long overdue appointment and once left alone in the treatment room, you tear off your clothes like it’s nobody’s business and scramble to get under the covers of the massage table. After smooshing your face awkwardly into the face rest, you fidget for a moment and at long last--with a sigh of relief--you sink down into the table. Finally.

The therapist enters the room and the moment you’ve been impatiently waiting for commences. The sheets are pulled back and the warm oil is applied as the therapist continues to glide and knead all your aches and worries away.

And then you feel it.

Bubbles of gas build up in your belly.

Oh no, you think. Just hold it in. It’ll pass.

And it does. Whew.

But then a moment later you feel it again, stronger this time. Still, you hold it in. But this time, your stomach announces the situation with a loud gurgle.

No, no, no. Please, no. Why now? You think, as you start to panic as if strapped to a bomb that could go off at any minute, rendering you paralyzed with shame and horror. You start to sweat. You feel like a Dutch oven ready to implode, but how could you possibly admit that?

And then--without any further warning to take cover or to run and hide--it happens.

Oh God. Oh no. I can’t believe that just happened. Maybe she didn’t hear it. What am I thinking? Of COURSE she did. It was like an 8.8 on the Richter scale! The whole table shook. Maybe the entire room shook. Does it smell bad? I can’t tell, I’ve had my face crammed into this face rest thing up to my ears and all I want to do is squeeze my entire body into it and disappear into a black hole…

Now let’s take a step back and assess the situation for a moment.

Is it REALLY that bad?

No. And I’ll tell you why.

When your body is relaxed, the parasympathetic nervous system (AKA the “Rest and Digest” system) kicks into gear. One of three divisions of the involuntary autonomic nervous system, the parasympathetic system conserves energy as it slows the heart rate, increases intestinal and glandular activity, and relaxes muscles in the gastrointestinal tract. Combine that with the massage stimulating the lymphatic, circulatory and digestive systems and you are no longer fully in control of everything that your body does. And that’s ok, because your massage therapist should have learned all about this during his or her training.

Stomach gurgles, burping, farting and snoring are all familiar sounds to massage therapists and should really be recognized as a job well done on their part. Much like slurping soup in Japan is a sign of approval and appreciation to the chef, those sounds that you try not to make during your massage could be considered a compliment to the therapist…as unorthodox as it may seem. ;)