What a New York Winter Asks of Your Body

Winter in Manhattan is not only cold. It is cold that comes at you sideways down the avenues, followed by apartments heated to the point where you sleep with a window cracked open. Both halves of that end up somewhere in your body, usually somewhere between your ears and your shoulder blades.

Why do your shoulders creep up in the cold?

Watch anyone waiting to cross an avenue in January. The chin goes down into the scarf, the shoulders come up towards the ears, the arms press into the sides and the hands disappear into pockets. It is an entirely sensible way to stand in a cold wind. It is also a position most people hold for the whole walk, and then for the next walk, and then for the one after that.

Nobody decides to do it and very few people notice they are doing it. What they notice is the evening: a band across the top of the back, a neck that turns less easily, a feeling that the shoulders have been worn rather than used. A heavy winter coat adds its own small weight to the same place, and a bag strap over the top of it adds a little more.

There is also the walking itself. Pavements with ice on them, or slush at every corner, change how people move. Steps get shorter and more careful, the hips and lower back brace, and a walk that would take ten easy minutes in October takes the same ten minutes with far more holding in it.

What do heated apartments have to do with it?

Quite a lot, in a quieter way. Many New York buildings keep the heat high all winter, and the air indoors tends to be warm and dry. People often describe their skin feeling tight or rough by the middle of the season, and some sleep less comfortably in rooms that are too warm to settle in.

None of that is something a massage fixes, and it is worth being clear about that. What it does change is what you might want from the hour. A guest whose skin has been dry for weeks may want more oil than usual, or a richer balm rather than a light oil. The difference between the two is covered in oil, balm or none, and the only thing you need to do about it is mention it at the start.

Which treatments suit the cold months?

There is no winter menu. The same five treatments are available all year, each in 60 or 90 minutes. What changes is what people tend to want from them, and a few patterns come up often enough to be worth describing.

If you are choosing between the first two, Swedish massage suits the broad, wound-up feeling of a long season, and deep tissue massage suits the single stubborn spot that has come from weeks of hunching. For the week when you want nothing at all asked of you, 4 Hands massage is worth a look. The 90-minute length is often the more comfortable choice in winter, simply because it gives the body time to warm through before the work goes anywhere specific.

How should you dress for arriving in winter?

The usual advice about what to wear for a massage still applies, with one difference: in winter you are also dressing for the walk there and the walk back, and those two walks happen at very different temperatures from the hour in between.

• Layers over bulk. A coat, a warm layer and something soft underneath comes off and goes back on far more easily than one heavy jumper.
• Easy footwear. Boots you can slip in and out of save a few minutes of wrestling with laces at both ends.
• Nothing tight at the neck. A scarf you can take off is better than a high collar that presses on the area you have just had worked.
• A hat for afterwards. Many people find their hair has a little oil in it at the hairline after work around the neck. A hat hides that and keeps you warm.
• Skip heavy moisturiser beforehand. It can make the oil harder to work with. Save it for the evening instead.
• Give yourself a few minutes on arrival. Arriving about ten minutes early gives you time to shake off snow or rain before the treatment begins.

What happens when you step back outside?

This is the part people forget to plan. After an hour of lying warm and still, the first minute on a January street can feel like a door opening onto a different season. The loose, unhurried feeling you leave with is easy to lose if you rush straight into the wind with your coat still unbuttoned.

1. Dress slowlyTake a few minutes over it rather than pulling everything on at once. There is no reason to hurry out of the room.
2. Put every layer back onButton the coat and cover the neck before you step into the elevator, not when you reach the street.
3. Have some waterHeated air and an hour of warmth leave many people thirsty. Drink something before you head back out.
4. Go somewhere warm nextHome, a quiet dinner, a train. Something that keeps the calm going rather than asking you to stand at a corner in the wind.

When is the best time of day to book in winter?

Winter afternoons are short, and many people like to arrive in daylight and leave into the evening with nowhere else to be. We are open daily from 10am to 9pm, with the last appointment finishing by 9pm, so a late slot works as the final thing in the day. An earlier booking suits people who would rather get the walk done while the city is a little less cold.

Whichever you choose, try to leave the rest of the evening soft. An evening wind-down at home, with one low lamp and nothing on a screen, carries the hour further than another walk across town would.

Winter teaches the shoulders to rise. An hour somewhere warm is a chance to let them remember where they were.

When you are ready, pick a time that lets you walk home rather than rush on, or look through the treatments and choose the one that suits the week the weather has given you.