Palm self-massage means kneading the palm of one hand with the thumb or fingers of the other. You sit with a pillow across your lap to support the arm you are treating, work over the palm in small circles for a minute or two, then shake the hand out loosely. The app lists it for carpal tunnel syndrome, where the nerve to the thumb side of the hand is squeezed at the wrist. It is an easy extra. The main work is still a night splint and changing the tasks that set the symptoms off.

How to do the palm self-massage

Sit on a chair, back upright and feet flat, and lay a pillow across your lap.
Rest the elbow of the arm you are treating on the pillow and hold that hand up in front of you, palm turned toward you, as in the video. Keep that wrist fairly straight. If holding the hand up tires your arm, lay the forearm flat on the pillow with the palm facing up instead.
With the thumb of your other hand, press gently into the palm and move in small circles, or knead the tissue slowly between your thumb and fingers.
Work across the whole palm: the fleshy pad at the base of the thumb, the pad on the little finger side, and the middle of the palm up toward the finger creases. Use only light pressure on the middle of the heel of the hand, just above the wrist crease.
After 1 to 2 minutes, lower the hand and shake it out gently.

What you should feel

Firm but comfortable pressure, and perhaps some tenderness in the fleshy pads of the palm that eases as you go. Your fingers should not start to tingle or go numb.

Common mistakes

Digging in hard at the middle of the heel of the hand, just above the wrist crease. The carpal tunnel lies right under it, and pressing there can bring on tingling.
Rubbing fast over the skin when the aim is to work slowly into the tissue under your thumb.
Letting the wrist of the treated hand bend far forward or back while you work, a position that can squeeze the nerve and bring on tingling.
Clenching the treated hand into a fist, which tightens the palm you are trying to loosen.

How often

A typical session is 1 to 2 minutes of massage, once or twice a day. Your physio will adjust this.

Stop and check with your physio if

Tingling, pins and needles or numbness in your thumb or fingers that comes on or gets worse while you massage. If one side of your face or body suddenly goes numb or weak, or your speech becomes slurred or muddled, call emergency services, even if it goes away.
Sharp pain in the palm, or bruising or soreness that is worse the next day.
Your forearm, hand or upper arm becomes swollen, warm, tender, red or darker than usual, has swollen veins that are sore to touch, or has a throbbing or cramping pain that feels different from normal muscle ache. Do not massage it. Stop and get medical advice the same day, as this can be a blood clot. If you are also short of breath or have chest pain, call emergency services.
Since a needle procedure, injection or operation on your hand, the hand is getting more painful rather than less, the skin becomes very sensitive to light touch, or the hand changes color, temperature, swelling or sweating compared with the other one, or looks shiny. See your doctor or physio as soon as you can, within a few days at most, as this can be complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS) and early treatment may help.

From the clinic

The pillow carries the weight of the arm, so the hand you are treating can stay loose while the other hand does the work. If your fingers start to tingle, ease the pressure and check that the wrist has not drifted into a bend. For carpal tunnel syndrome, the usual first steps are a night splint that holds the wrist straight and less of the gripping and wrist bending that bring the symptoms on. Massage sits on top of those. It does not replace them.

Leave out any area with a cut, a rash, broken or infected skin, or a scar that has not fully healed, including a recent carpal tunnel release scar. If you take blood-thinning medicine, bruise easily or have lymphedema in that arm, check with your doctor or physio first. After a broken wrist, hand or forearm, or surgery on any of them such as a tendon repair, start only when your doctor, surgeon, physio or hand therapist says the bone or repair is ready for this, and follow their plan for how much to do.

If the numbness in your hand never goes away, your thumb keeps getting weaker, or the pad at the base of the thumb looks flatter than on the other hand, see a doctor within a few days rather than relying on massage. Get medical advice the same day if the weakness gets worse from one day to the next or spreads past the thumb.

Forearm self massage works the muscles above the wrist from the same seated position, and carpal tunnel self-massage is a light stroke along the whole arm with a flat object. For movement rather than massage, see tendon glides.

Written and checked by the PocketPhysio editorial team. Last updated 2026-09-28.

This page is general education, not a diagnosis or a personal treatment plan. If you have pain, an injury or a health condition, see a physiotherapist or doctor before starting new exercises.

Palm self-massage