I help people.

I provide modern, evidence-informed bodywork to all kinds of people, for all kinds of reasons.

I treat comprehensively. Every time you visit, we unwind your entire musculature and settle your nervous system. Here's what you get:

1. You get more comfort and less pain in your everyday life. Finally!
2. You get recovery and mobility for your sport or performing art.
3. You get a concentrated dose of restorative downtime that boosts many healing processes in your body, including brain function, immune competence, and tissue repair.
4. You get an exquisite reminder that your body, with all of its imperfections and difficulties, is a great place to be. Real happiness and relief can be found here. This is really healthy for you, all the way down to the molecular level.

Most of my practice is serving regulars who have a monthly appointment with me as a kind of ongoing healthcare and performance tuning. Having said that, regular appointments are not required. You can also come see me occasionally, or just once.

My message to you: helping your body helps everything.

— Mike Papciak

In-office appointments are two hours. Cost is $450, no gratuity. A first appointment is usually 40 minutes consultation and an hour-twenty on the table. Subsequent sessions are usually ten minutes checking in, and an hour-fifty on the table.

I also offer 60-minute video sessions. Cost is $250, no gratuity. Working virtually, I provide assessment, consultation, self-treatment instruction, and practical, doable ways to deal with problems and feel good in the body you have right now.

It's totally unlike traditional massage. Will you like the way I work, and find it helpful? Let's try for no surprises. Here's how my practice is different from what you might expect:

1) It costs what other professional services cost in this area. Historically, massage therapy has cost much less than other private-practice healthcare or professional services. This is changing.

2) It doesn't hurt a lot. Fifty years ago, practitioners thought they changed the body by pressing really hard, so people came to think that bodywork had to be painful and intense to be effective. That's how you know you're getting serious therapy, and not some wimpy spa massage — right?

In fact, decades of research have shown that we do not change human tissue by pressing really hard, and that pressure is a kind of placebo. 

You feel better and perform better after our session, but not because we dug some bad stuff out of your body, and not because we forced your muscles to obey.

You feel better and perform better after our session because we skillfully work with your body in such a way that your nervous system finally feels support and relief, so it allows your muscles to unclench and unwind. That's how it really works. Science!

When I explain this, some people think: oh, the work will be delicate. It's not that, either. It's not dainty or artificially gentle. And it's not uselessly painful. It's a middle way.

3) Relaxing and enjoying the session amplifies its benefit. It feels good! Often we expect healthcare to be difficult or unpleasant, but when you relax and enjoy the session, the downregulation of your nervous system produces a surge of neurochemical and hormonal benefits. I call this burping the brain. Stress chemicals simmer down and good chemicals flourish, boosting immunity and recovery.

4) We never spend the entire session working only on "the problem." I carefully treat your whole system every time because — as you may have heard — it's all connected. It may seem like your problem is in just one spot or one muscle, but the human body is never actually like that. Your body is a complex system, where everything affects everything, in ways that are not always predictable or controllable. So I treat broadly. Your entire musculature and your nervous system. Every time.

5) A permanent fix never arrives. This is because you are a living organism! Your body cannot be permanently fixed. Your body is maintained. Hello, reality.

6) I'm only part of your solution. It would be nice if you could just come see me from time to time and your body wouldn't need anything else, but you'll only thrive, or heal, or improve sustainably if you also take care of yourself in other departments like strength, sleep, mental health, and nutrition. Yep: more reality.

7) It's not emergency medicine. If you just destroyed your shoulder in the gym yesterday, or you threw out your back and now you're crawling to the bathroom, it's too late for me to help much. Come see me when you're out of catastrophe, if you want to work preventatively so this doesn't happen again.

8) Athletes: If you're seeking treatment for a sports injury, see a rehab specialist, not me.

If you want to focus all of the attention on your symptoms, ignore what doesn’t hurt, and feel hammered afterward, see someone who still works this way, not me.

If you want to feel completely untangled from head to toe, totally refreshed for a season or a competition or a project or a deload, and that you’ve done something deeply restorative for the body that you drive so hard and ask so much of, see me. That’s what I do. Also known as: recovery. Your new secret weapon?

9) There's no fancy or mysterious name for it. It's my own method and I just call it bodywork. This is the perfect word for it, simple and clear. I work with your body.

I use myofascial and deep-tissue techniques, non-physician osteopathic techniques, trigger point techniques, craniosacral therapy, relational therapy, structural integration from the Rolfing/Hellerwork tradition, some ideas and tools from the ancient instrument-assisted and manual therapies gua sha and tui na, and some ideas from Zen practice, like staying with reality instead of what sounds appealing but isn't true. 

No gimmicks. No kooky mysticism. My tools are hand skill, expertise, and kindness. I'm proud of the work I've developed, and I love helping people with it. 

Hygiene info:

There's no waiting room. I meet you at the building entrance and we go directly to my office.

Like many healthcare providers, I wear a mask during treatment, to protect myself while we're indoors in close quarters. Client masking is optional. I always have surgical masks on hand if you want one or need one.

I wipe everything down between appointments just like you'd hope I do. There's no sharing of linens between clients. All linens are dried in a hot dryer before use. 

I run a couple HEPA filters and there's a ceiling exhaust fan in the treatment room.

I wear nitrile gloves, which might seem unusual in a massage therapy setting, but my method unwinds the deeper structures of the body, instead of sliding on its surface. Gloves are no impediment.