Chills after a massage: why they happen and how to handle them

By the ESCAPE team · for information only, not a substitute for medical care

You’ve just spent an hour in bliss. Your body heavy and loose, your mind finally quiet. And then comes a chill. Goosebumps, maybe even a little shivering, right when you’d expect anything but the cold. Sounds like nonsense, doesn’t it? They warm you up, and then you’re the one shivering.

Good news: there’s nothing wrong with it. This little betrayal by the body is one of the most common reactions after a massage, and it almost always passes on its own within a few minutes. It isn’t a cold, and it certainly isn’t any “flushing out of toxins”, as you sometimes read. It’s just the body settling after deep relaxation. We’ll explain what’s going on inside, how to warm up quickly, and when it is, rarely, worth paying attention.

What’s actually happening in the body

There isn’t one cause behind that shivering. Several things come together at once. And none of them is a bad sign, quite the opposite. Usually they’re proof that the massage really worked.

• Your body warmed up and is now cooling. During the massage your skin and muscles get thoroughly warm, thanks to the hands, friction, oil and the warmth of the room. Once you stop lying down, the body starts releasing the excess heat. For a moment your skin gives it off faster than you can replace it, and you feel that as cold.
• Oil cools you like after a swim. After an oil massage a thin film of oil stays on the skin. As it evaporates it feels cold, exactly like stepping out of a pool into the air. That’s why the chill tends to come more after an oil or aromatherapy massage than after a dry Thai one.
• The nervous system switched to “rest”. Deep relaxation pulls the body out of alert mode into calm. Your pulse slows, tension lets go, and with it changes how the body manages heat. A brief chill is just an echo of that switch.
• Blood has redistributed. A massage boosts circulation deep in the muscles. When blood moves there, the surface of the body and your hands and feet can cool for a moment. Hence that feeling of cold and the goosebumps.
• Tension dropped, and maybe blood sugar too. If you arrive stressed or on an empty stomach, after the massage your stress hormones fall and sometimes blood sugar drops as well. The body responds with a brief shiver, much like when you’re hungry. Nothing dramatic, just a reminder that you’ve finally switched off.

How long it lasts (and when it’s perfectly normal)

Usually it’s a matter of a few minutes. The cold arrives shortly after the massage ends or on your way off the table and holds you for a little while. Once you wrap up and drink something warm, it’s gone. It rarely stretches past half an hour. And it’s almost always more a feeling of cold and goosebumps than real teeth-chattering.

Think of it this way. A slight shiver, cold hands, the urge to burrow into a blanket, that’s all fine. The body is just resetting its thermostat. What no longer belongs to a calm reaction to a massage is violent shivering with chattering teeth, a hot forehead, a fever, or a chill that lasts for hours and tends to get worse. We’ll get to that in When to pay attention.

By the way, chills aren’t the only thing your body may surprise you with after a massage. Just as harmlessly come fatigue, weakness or mild nausea. We’ve put the full picture together in Reactions after a massage: what’s normal and when to pay attention.

How to warm up quickly

Nothing complicated. It’s just about slowing the loss of heat and adding a little from the outside and the inside. Best in this order:

• Don’t rush anywhere. Stay lying down a little longer, pull a blanket over yourself and let your body finish. Most chills fade before you even get dressed.
• Wipe off the oil. After an oil massage, run a towel over your skin. That stops the cooling from evaporation. Leave the shower for home. A cold or long one would only chill you further.
• Add a layer. Socks, a jumper, something over the shoulders. Your warmed body will thank you that the heat didn’t escape straight into the air.
• Have something warm. Herbal tea or warm water warms you from within and tops up fluids at the same time. And if you came on an empty stomach, a small sweet bite will steady your blood sugar too.
• Don’t dash out into the cold. A few minutes in the warmth does more than everything else combined.

How to (almost) prevent it

You may not be able to switch it off entirely, and that’s fine, it’s harmless. But a few small things cut the odds of shivering nicely:

• Come fed and hydrated. Hunger and thirst don’t suit a massage and only feed the chill. We go through how best to prepare in What to bring to a massage.
• Say something when you feel cold. We can adjust the room temperature, an extra blanket and a heated table. Your comfort is part of the massage, not a bother. Do say so.
• Plan for calm. A sharp jump from cosy warmth into cold and bustle is exactly the moment the chill strikes. What not to do after a massage we’ve written up here.
• Leave a margin in winter. When it’s freezing outside, dress in layers and give yourself a longer wind-down in the warmth afterwards. It’s worth it.

When to pay attention

The line is thankfully clear. An ordinary post-massage chill is short, mild and disappears in the warmth. But do see a doctor if any of these signals appear.

These are no longer reactions to a massage. It’s the body saying something else is going on, and the sensible thing is to leave it to a doctor. A massage is deep care and relief, not a medical procedure. It’s no substitute for an examination or a diagnosis.