I help people.

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

I treat comprehensively. Each session is a full re-set. We unwind your entire musculature and we settle your nervous system. Here's what you get:

1. You get mobility, resilience, and recovery. More comfort and less pain.
2. You get a concentrated dose of restorative downtime that measurably boosts many healing processes in your body, including brain function, immune competence, and tissue repair.
3. You get a safe, friendly container where your body will be helped, not judged.
4. You get expert, nondogmatic info about how your body really works.

Many of my clients are regulars who have a monthly appointment with me as a kind of ongoing healthcare and performance tuning. These are people who understand that maintenance is the way — that staying healthy makes life less stressful, more productive, and more fun.

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 forty minutes assessment and 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 50-minute video sessions. Cost is $200, no gratuity. Working virtually, I provide assessment, consultation, self-treatment instruction, and practical ways to deal with pain, rehab injuries, and feel good in the body you have right now.

It's different! Will you like the way I work, and find it helpful? Read this, you'll know.

Surprise #1) Cost is approaching what other professional therapies cost in this area. Historically, massage therapy has cost less than other private-practice healthcare. This is changing, as science validates its tension-relieving, anxiety-reducing, immune-boosting, neuroplasticity-influencing, performance-enhancing benefits.

Surprise #2) It doesn't hurt a lot. Fifty years ago, practitioners thought they changed the body by pressing really hard on it. Unfortunately, this seems like common sense, 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?

Turns out this is junk science. Decades of contemporary research have shown that we do not change human tissue by pressing really hard on it. Pressure is placebo.

Your muscles don't have minds or wills of their own. Your brain is in charge of them. Tension and pain are controlled by the nervous system, not by the muscles themselves. Bodywork works because it cues your brain to pay closer attention to your body.

You feel better and perform better, but not because we dug some bad stuff out of your body, and not because we forced your tissue to obey. You feel better and perform better because your nervous system, reassured and guided by touch, feels safe enough to unclench. That's how it works, folks — one of those pesky science things, true whether we like the sound of it or not.

When I explain this, some people then assume the work is delicate. It's not that, either. It's not dainty or artificially gentle. And it's not brutal. It's a middle way.

Surprise #3) We never spend the entire session working only on "the problem." We carefully treat your whole body 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 not actually like that. Science! Your body is a complex system, where everything affects everything, in ways that are not always predictable or controllable. So we treat broadly. We address specific complaints like headaches or knee pain by working with the entirety of your musculature and your nervous system.

Surprise #4) Relaxing and enjoying the session amplifies its benefit. Did you think it had to be grim? You can't switch over to repair mode unless your limbic system feels safe and comfortable. 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. The good molecules flourish, boosting health and performance.

Surprise #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.

Surprise #6) I'm only part of your solution. It would be cool if you could just come see me from time to time, and your body wouldn't need anything else. This won't happen. 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.

Surprise #7) There's no fancy name for it. I just call it bodywork. It's my own method, derived from many methods and teachers and 15 years of professional practice. I use myofascial and deep-tissue techniques, trigger point therapy, craniosacral therapy, relational therapy, structural integration from the Rolfing/Hellerwork tradition, some ideas and tools from the Chinese 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. With hand skill, expertise, and kindness, I untangle your body, settle your nervous system, and tune you up for performance and health.

Contact me about appointments.

Virus precautions:

I'm vaccinated and boostered.

Appointments are spaced with cleaning and virus decay in mind.

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

There's no sharing of linens between clients. All linens are dried in a hot dryer before use.

My treatment room has two HEPA filters, an exhaust fan in the ceiling, and another fan at floor level for air movement.

Payment is touchless. 

Currently we both wear masks while you are on the treatment table, regardless of vaccination status, as a general cold/flu/virus/droplet precaution.

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 gliding on its surface. Gloves are no impediment.