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 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, less stress and anxiety, greater range and ease of motion, and a renewed sense of comfort in their own bodies—all of which improves their confidence in everyday movement, and performance.
About Our Team
Our Team
Heather Barstow
A native of Hadley, Heather holds two degrees from Springfield Technical Community College. One in Myofascial Therapy and the other in Physical Therapist Assistant. Heather has a unique passion and fascination for the intersection of physical conditioning, massage and bodywork. She applies the principles of orthopedic medicine to her massage and bodywork practices which have been most effective in treating chronic pain and discomfort in clients who have otherwise exhausted all the usual avenues of health care to find relief.
She hopes to integrate her talents and resources to best support recovery as well as the overall health and wellness of the people of the Pioneer Valley.
Veronica Boinay
Veronica Boinay, better known as “Vee”, received her massage education from Springfield Technical Community College, graduating in 2002 with an Associate’s Degree in Myofascial Therapy. She received the Healing Hands award that year and began her work running her own practice in Easthampton and later East Longmeadow Massachusetts, while simultaneously teaching Swedish and Deep Tissue courses for STCC. With over 20 years of experience in bodywork, her passion lies in the fact that no two massages sessions can be the same as every person comes to the table with a unique experience on that day. She believes in listening with ears and hands to every helpful message a body communicates, and responding with techniques that help relax, undo and normalize tissues.
Sarah Bessonett
Sarah discovered massage therapy after finding significant relief from chronic migraines that plagued her in adolescence. Inspired by that experience, she attended and maintained a 4.0 at Cortiva Institute of Massage in Connecticut graduating in 2018 and began her practice in Keene, NH. 7 years and many continuing ed certifications later, she brings cupping therapy, prenatal massage, Table Thai, and advanced manual lymphatic drainage (MLD) with her to the Pioneer Valley. Sarah crafts all of her sessions to meet your needs, favoring a lighter approach that is still profoundly effective for achieving your preferred result. She is very excited to bring her skills to the Pioneer Valley.
Our Journey
Barstow Massage and Bodywork opened its doors in August of 2010. Almost everything about this practice has changed since then. Heather built the practice as a solo practitioner with a waitlist, at times, as long as 12 weeks. She aspires to share her knowledge and passion for this work by mentoring and collaborating with her staff to ultimately expand our reach and positively affect the health and wellbeing of our entire community one client at a time. We believe that massage and bodywork is an integral part of a person’s wellbeing and aim to provide the absolute best massage and bodywork the pioneer valley has to offer. We know as ambitious and passionate as we are about bodywork, wellness is a moving target with many facets, which is why we refer regularly to equally talented and reputable health and wellness practices and professionals. It takes a village, folks! Join ours!
What We Treat
Stress
Our bodies are operating with more stress and less movement than ever before. Let us help you downshift the nervous system from fight or flight into our rest and repair mode for to overall tension, while improving sleep, mood, focus, digestion and all aspects of performance.
Fascia
Fascial tissue is the white membrane that wraps every individual muscle fiber, their fascicles(bundles of fibers) and each individual muscle. Fascia also holds all of your organs in place and suspends them from your skeleton and abdominal wall. Fascia serves many functions, however, its function as a lubricant is most vital to your feeling comfortable in your skin. In a myofascial release session, we work with this tissue to release you from deeply engrained postural patterns that cause you diffuse and elusive pain or discomfort within your body.
Acute or Chronic Pain
Are you living day in and day out with body pain? Moving through that is not the flex you think it is! No matter your age, your body is not meant to live with pain! Let us help you identify the dysfunction sooner rather than later to improve the quality of your movement and life.
Lymphatic Drainage
Cellular waste from all over your body travels through the lymph ducts to the lymph nodes where it is processed and brought to the kidneys for elimination, while healthy fluid is redistributed back into the bloodstream. Dehydration, injury, surgery and illness among many other things can cause this system to flow slowly, or inefficiently. A Manual lymphatic drainage(MLD) treatment is a lighter touch massage, that targets a stretch of the skin to facilitate the body’s natural lymphatic flow. People experience decreased puffiness and swelling associated with injury, surgery and many inflammatory conditions.
Visceral Manipulation
Visceral Manipulation is a technique used to locate organs and their attachments and features to improve their function and movement relationships within the abdomen. Like Myofascial release, we work with the fascia to relubricate their surfaces instantly decreasing stress on their physical structure, improving their function and subsequently, your range of motion and overall comfort within your skin.
Prenatal Massage
Prenatal massage is specifically designed for the pregnant woman. There are many adjustments that accompany pregnancy and this massage is designed to address these unique tension patterns, reduce stress and support pregnancy, safely.