Portland, Oregon · Licensed Massage Therapist

Recover.
Downshift.
Reset.

Purposeful work for bodies in motion.
Space for your nervous system to slow down.

Book a Session

Location

Portland, OR

Sessions

60 & 90 min

Approach

Nervous System First

About

Drawn to this work by a life lived in the body.

I'm Chris Sturm, a licensed massage therapist based in Portland. My path here wasn't a career pivot — it was a homecoming. Decades of yoga, movement practice, Buddhist meditation, athletic training, and receiving skilled bodywork planted the seeds long before I ever trained to give it.

A profound life transition brought everything into focus: what it means to be held, to be met where you are, to feel the nervous system finally let go. That experience — and the desire to offer it to others navigating their own crossroads — is what brought me to this work.

I trained at East West College of the Healing Arts in Portland. Every session I offer is shaped by that lived history — attentive, adaptive, and grounded in the belief that the body knows how to heal when it's given the right conditions.

Services

What a session looks like

All sessions begin with a brief intake conversation. Techniques are adapted in real time to what your body needs that day.

60 minutes

Therapeutic Massage

Focused, adaptive bodywork targeting your primary areas of tension, restriction, or holding. Good for maintenance and targeted relief.

$130

90 minutes

Full-Body Reset

Time and space to work through the whole system — not just the loud places. Integrative, unhurried, and attentive to the nervous system throughout.

$185

Ongoing

Injury & Recovery

For people navigating repetitive strain, post-injury rehab, or chronic holding patterns. Clinical where needed, nervous-system-aware throughout.

Session rates apply

My Approach

Your body isn't a problem to solve. It's a system to listen to.

Most of us live in a state of chronic low-grade activation — nervous systems running hot, bodies braced against the next thing. Therapeutic massage isn't just about muscle tension. It's about helping your system remember how to downshift.

I work with presence and precision, adapting to real-time feedback rather than following a fixed sequence. Sessions can be quiet and deeply restorative, or targeted and clinical — often both within the same session.

If there's an injury or structural issue involved, I bring that into the frame too. But I don't let the clinical part override the relational one. The nervous system is always part of the picture.

"Purposeful work for bodies in motion. Space for your nervous system to slow down."

Who This Is For

This work tends to resonate with people who…

Are carrying chronic tension they've learned to live around — and are ready to stop managing it and actually address it
Are in the middle of a transition: physical, professional, or personal — and need their body to be a resource, not another thing demanding attention
Value communication and presence in a session — not just technique applied to a problem
Have had massage before but want something more adaptive, more attuned, and less assembly-line
Are athletes, movers, or people with physical practices who want bodywork that understands how the body actually works
Are navigating stress, nervous system fatigue, or the kind of exhaustion that sleep doesn't fix

Recover. Downshift. Reset.