Helping the Pioneer Valley feel better through thoughtful, client-centered massage and bodywork

Who we are

We exist to help our clients navigate acute and chronic pain, high stress, inflammation and all of your bodily aches and pains. With a combined 45 years of experience, we meet you exactly where you are and devote our full attention to learning your body and addressing your concerns. Booking an appointment with us means committing to a partnership focused on your goals—we’re dedicated not only to helping you get there, but to supporting you throughout your broader wellness journey. Our clients often experience faster recovery time, less pain, stress and anxiety, greater ease and range of motion, and a renewed sense of comfort in their own bodies—all of which improve their confidence in everyday movement, and performance.

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Who We Help

Too many people walk around with pain thinking it’s just a part of life. It is NOT! We aim to resolve the dysfunction that causes your pain and maintain a pain free baseline with regular bodywork.

❋ Chronic Pain & Tension

Stress and burnout are physiological states with measurable biomarkers. Typically, multifaceted, being able to take a nervous system that is stuck in fight or flight, and then downshift into a rest and reparative state is one of the most crucial components to recovery. Only then can your body get more out of your sleep, diet, and hydration. This downshift also allows one to notice their stressors, giving valuable insight into noticing and subsequently changing habits that contribute to the cycle of depletion.

❋ Stress & Burnout

Though the female body is meant to carry and birth a child, it is an anatomical feat to do so! We are honored-and qualified to care for pregnant bodies throughout the second and third trimesters, as well as postpartum. Massage during this time period can be instrumental in managing stress and the unique tension patterns that result from growing a human!

❋ Prenatal Wellness

Exercise tightens your muscles and that is a great thing! But what are you doing to lengthen them? Stretching and yoga are wonderful at lengthening but those are also typically active and still engaging muscle in a contraction. Those are also great and serve an important purpose. What massage can do is provide passive relaxation, allowing your muscles to completely let go for a short time resetting their length/tension relationship. Being able to let go, is an important skill that isn’t foundationally taught or routinely advised like strengthening or cardio is. It is an equally important part of fitness to allow muscles to truly rest so they can perform their best for you. So, if you can’t let go, or you’re having difficulty or pain moving any part of your body during any of your workouts or activities, give us a call so we can assess, release tension and give you valuable insight into how to do so.

❋ Mobility & Movement Support

Massage has been used as a primary treatment for strains, sprains and body pain for as long as humans have been documenting life. We are an integral resource for our clients when they overdo yardwork, their workouts, or slip and fall and/or throw something ‘out.’ We’ve also seen our fair share of post-op pain management. Many of our clients have had total knee, hip and shoulder replacements whose recoveries were smoother because their muscle tension was managed throughout their recovery.

❋ Injury & Post-Surgical Recovery

Staying active is probably THE most commonly given advice when it comes to maintaining your health. But what happens when you’re active and it leaves you sore or hurting? That soreness is telling you where you might be imbalanced or weak, and the presence of pain during or after activity is telling you something isn’t moving properly. We can address those things so you can keep doing the things you love! We also vet and maintain relationships with many local, reputable health care professionals to refer you to if and when we see that you might benefit from a different specialty.

❋ Athletes & Active Lifestyles

Heather Barstow, Veronica Boinay, Sarah Bessonett

What Makes us Different

At Barstow Massage & Bodywork, our approach is rooted in thoughtful, individualized care. We believe bodywork should support not only relaxation, but recovery, mobility, nervous system regulation, and stress reduction for long-term wellness.

Featured Services

The best of the worlds relaxation techniques, Swedish massage consists of light to medium pressure strokes, to lull the body into a function very close to sleep. In this state, the body is given the perfect opportunity to melt down any tension, and trigger the body's reparation response. Swedish massage is a useful tool in management of anxiety, depression, fatigue, high blood pressure, stress, acute and chronic pain.
Deep Tissue massage is an approach meant primarily for pain relief. Deep tissue massage targets your trouble spots by using deeper, more specific techniques to release seized musculature. Deep Tissue massage should never have you clenching your hands or teeth, which is why we are in frequent communication about pressure. *Naturally, there are different levels of pain; we like to be in the zone of a ‘good hurt.’ Typically referred as a 7/10 and feels productive. Any higher is counterproductive. If you’ve never had deep tissue massage, or have had a bad experience, please let us show you how it’s supposed to be!
Fascial tissue is a white membrane which wraps every individual muscle fiber, every muscle, every muscle group, every organ, and connects our skin to our structure, giving us our shape. It serves many functions, however, its function as a lubricant is most vital to your feeling like movement is smooth, and easy through your full range of motion. Fascial tissue is strong, but delicate in that it can dehydrate easily and behave more like saran wrap-limiting your motion instead of lubricating it. This massage is focused on mobilizing and restoring blood flow to tissue restoring its range so that you literally feel more comfortable in your skin.
Prenatal massage is specifically designed for the pregnant body. There are many adjustments that accompany pregnancy and massage is an incredible way to reduce stress and address the unique tension patterns that result from growing a human.
A Manual lymphatic drainage (MLD) treatment is a lighter touch massage, geared to target a stretch of the skin to facilitate the body’s natural lymphatic flow. MLD is great for post surgical care, mild lymphedema, headaches, allergy symptoms and countless other inflammatory conditions.
Visceral Manipulation is a very light, myofascial technique that focuses on locating and ‘listening’ to the organs in the abdomen. Each organ is connected and suspended within the abdomen by fascia that can twist, and adhere to the structures next to it. Restoring space and movement for each organ can improve it’s function, as well as greatly effect the way our core engages-or doesn’t!