Twenty-five minutes is cheaper, yes, but it ain’t enough. Just as you’re relaxing into it, it’s over. The massage equivalent of cracking one out in the bogs.  3. Request a female therapist.  Male masseurs are perfectly adequate - perhaps even preferable - in the faux-medical world of "sports massage", when it’s all about firm pressure, E45 cream and knee injuries. But when a fit, toned man is delicately folding hot stones into your hairy shoulders, I assure you, you will wish you asked for a lady.  Many spas insist you put on a robe and endure a "relaxation room" before your treatment. As they rarely have robes in men’s sizes, you’ll probably be sitting there in a gown designed for a fat woman; feeling the cold, and worried you’re showing too much leg. Mobile phone use is frowned upon in this futile environment, yet the only reading matter available is ancient Grazia and Look. Bring your own.  5. Buy some special pants.  However casual and confident you feel, releasing your tackle in the treatment room is NOT The Done Thing. If you even attempt it, you will - at best - be asked to put on humiliating paper pants from the spray-tan suite. But keeping your underwear on can be just as distressing: if you wear boxers (as I do), there’s a very real risk, as your legs are shifted and folded about, that the boys will escape their barracks. The solution: buy a pair of briefs or trunk boxers, even if this is not your usual preference. Remember to wear them to massage treatments each time, just the same way you bring your trunks to the swimming pool.  6. Don’t worry about getting an erection.  Seriously, you won’t. It smells of tea tree oil in there. You’ll have slices of cucumber on your face. And she won’t touch you within ten inches of "your area". So just chill out.  7. Get used to pan pipes.  Along with bagpipes and the recorder, pan pipes are in the running for Worst Musical Instrument Ever, yet every spa in the world insists on relaying their din 24/7. You could try requesting a soundtrack that truly relaxes you (I’d opt for the The Food Programme podcast from Radio 4), but that would probably involve a discussion with the manager, which would be more stressful than enduring the pan pipes. So, just get used to the pipes.  8. Try not to laugh.  Professional massage therapists take their qualifications seriously, so even though they often talk in a comically serene whisper, pointlessly clang a preposterously dinky bell inches from your nose, and at times are actually tickling you, try not to laugh. It doesn’t go down well.  9. Drink lots of water.  They’ll tell you to do this, and then you won’t, and then you’ll nearly faint on the drive home. And then you’ll remember to drink some water.  10. Take the rest of the day off.  Aaaaaannnnnddd… relax. Book your treatment on a day when you don’t have to work afterwards - unless your job is actually improved by feeling floaty and light and otherworldly. And then try to revel in the relaxation. I always feel like when I’ve just had an endorphin release from swimming, or have been sweating it out on the treadmill. Except I’ve just been lying there! Ha! Win.  You can hear Olly Mann Through The Night, Weeknights from 1am on LBC 97.3
From pan pipes to 'special' pants, spa convert Olly Mann explains how   to negotiate the minefield of having a massage