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25Life-Changing Treatments

Live better now. Transformation is at the heart of the spa experience, and you can make a difference in your own world by trying any one of these potential-filled options.

ERICKA MCCONNELL. STYLIST: DONNA MARIA DUARTE. BIKINI BY LISA CURRAN. PHOTOGRAPHED AT COMO SHAMBHALA AT PARROT CAY.

By Alexia Brue and Shari Mycek with Tamara Collins, Guillaume David-Wolf, Laurie Drake, Linda Hayes, Margaret Pierpont, Diana Rico, Julie Sinclair and Emma Sloley

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life-changing treatments

fast/cleanse

Seasonal fasting is credited with numerous attributes, most notably the detoxification of the body.

This effect is an integral tool in anti-aging regimens and a useful discipline for regaining personal energy.

And because of the expertise and knowledge a spa can offer, supervised fasts and cleanses conducted in this setting eliminate the Before You Begin temptations of a stocked To make your spa-supported kitchen and provide valudetox more effective and less able insights. shocking to the system, We During a fast (no Care Spa founder Susana food, only liquid) or Belen suggests making the cleanse (a modified diet following lifestyle modifications usually consisting of fresh the week before you arrive: fruits and vegetables that • Walk every day for exercise. often includes various supplements), your body • Incorporate dry brushing into goes into self-cleaning your daily routine and, if mode. Dependencies on possible, take a 15-minute substances like sugar and sauna every day. caffeine become quickly • Stop drinking caffeine or at apparent — and are overleast cut your habit in half. come — with the most • Curtail consumption of meat, common benefit being, rice and pasta. surprisingly, increased • Three days before arrival, shift energy levels. One woman, an avid cyclist, noted that after a cleanse, your diet to only fruits and her face lost its puffiness and she was no longer sore and stiff after a vegetables: a smoothie for long ride. Others found themselves cured of allergies, not to mention breakfast, salad for lunch and feeling lithe and lean. Susana Belen, founder of We Care Spa — located vegetable soup for dinner. in Desert Hot Springs, California — explains, “Any diet can make you lose weight; only fasting defogs your mind.” A.B.

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JONAH LIGHT

MICRODERMABRASION Among the most results-producing facial treatments, microdermabrasion evens skin tone, refines pores and minimizes the appearance of sun damage and fine lines. Using a wandlike electronic device, a fine stream of microcrystals is blasted onto the face, simultaneously sloughing off dead skin cells and vacuuming them away. Although this level of skin polishing heightens sensitivity to UV rays and so requires extra sun precaution, it naturally renews the skin’s ability to refresh itself, encouraging the healthy production of collagen and elastin building blocks, all without the use of painful lasers or invasive surgery. While one session can yield impressive results, most practitioners recommend several for optimum effect, particularly when it comes to reducing pigmentation and fine lines. Because microdermabrasion actually stimulates blood flow to the surface of the skin, it creates a lightly flushed, healthy effect — which might explain why its proponents all have that certain glow. E.S.

life-changing treatments

Sleeping Arrangements The foundation of good posture, a healthy spine is as much the result of sufficient muscular support as it is a lack of strain. Beyond the efforts of our waking hours — making sure shoulders are back and relaxed — the positions we sleep in can aid or hinder the process of preserving posture. Katherine Coffee, a fitness instructor at Lake Austin Resort Spa in Texas, recommends a firm mattress along with these spinetingling tips.

ON YOUR BACK This is the recommended sleeping position. Place a pillow, bolster or rolled-up blanket under the knees to relieve lower back strain and support the neck and head with a small pillow. (A pillow that’s too large can promote a forward-head position.)

ON YOUR SIDE Put one pillow under

Good posture does more than make a positive first impression: It also improves breathing and digestive function, both of which increase overall energy levels. Until something goes wrong, it’s easy to take the spine’s natural strength and flexibility for granted, but by applying the same careful consideration to posture as we do to eating healthfully and exercising, we honor the backbone’s crucial role in living and aging well. Spa posture programs pair clients with fitness pros who observe natural stance and make hands-on adjustments. They also provide exercise instruction (often with take-home printouts) to strengthen the weak spots that lead to poor posture. Exercises that emphasize deep-core conditioning (stability balls are a common tool) and retraining shoulders into a relaxed, neutral position provide the foundation that allows the spine to stand tall. A.B.

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ON YOUR STOMACH This position is not recommended, as sleeping on the stomach can increase the low back curve and stress the neck and shoulders. However, if you do choose to sleep face down, place a pillow under the pelvis to prevent excessive arching of the low back.

ANN CUTTING/BOTANICA

posture lessons

the side of the head (keeping the neck level with the spine) and place another between the knees. This will help keep the head, neck and spine in a neutral alignment. Lying on your side with knees bent supports the natural curve of the back.

life-changing treatments

“Welcome, Sister.” Inside a low-to-the-ground half-dome, glowingly hot stones are placed in the pit at its center. As new stones are brought in, each is welcomed with these words; a scraping of copal resin on their fiery surfaces fills the air with a mystical scent. When the last of the rocks is laid, the heavy Native American blanket door covering is closed.

Participants, each of whom crawled humbly on hands and knees into the sweat lodge, symbolic in its round darkness of the womb and rebirth, are ready to purge themselves of woes and toxins — and emerge reborn.

Used for centuries by native tribes for purification and to connect with the Great Spirit, a “sweat” has four rounds, each hotter than the previous. And it can last up to four sweltering hours. As spas add these in a commercialized context (sweats typically cost about $80 per person), questions arise about authenticity. But, most spa-goers are honored to share in the sacred ceremony. A sweat is a vehicle for

clearing the mind, a chance to vocalize one’s hopes, dreams, desires and demons. And, it is a unique cleansing therapy. “I always sleep wonderfully after a sweat,” one regular notes. “For me, it’s a very spiritual and beautiful way to connect with all life forms.”

Similar in ceremony, the Mayan sweat lodge, called temazcal (Maroma Resort and Spa’s version is shown here), is also about purification, “sweating until the ego is gone, and connecting with the heart,” in the words of Nancy Velasco, a temascalera at Ikal del Mar resort in Mexico. Mayan tea — a mixture of chamomile, rosemary, fragrant leaves, rose petals and milk extract — is continuously doused onto the fire; mud, or sometimes honey or aloe vera, is slathered onto the skin while drums keep rhythm for group chants and prayers made to Verde, the Mayan goddess of compassion and universal love. Two hours later, participants emerge on hands and knees and dip into the sea (or under a cool shower) for further cleansing. S.M.

KURT MARKUS. PHOTOGRAPHED AT MAROMA RESORT AND SPA.

sweat lodge/temazcal

life-changing treatments

Feldenkrais Method Feldenkrais uses gentle movement and noninvasive touch to help the client become aware of existing neuromuscular patterns and to suggest other, pain-free ways to move and be still. As your muscles, skeleton and nerves experience the options for reorganizing themselves, new neural pathways are formed in the brain. The method is practiced in either one-on-one sessions (Functional Integration) or group lessons (Awareness Through Movement).

Alexander Technique

movement education

Two years ago, a couple of ruptured disks in my lower back landed me on the table of a physical therapist specializing in the Feldenkrais Method. After my first session, my back felt better and a longtime, arthritic hip pain was gone, too. Floating across the parking lot, pain-free for the first time in 15 years, I couldn’t help but wonder if emotional aches might also be as swiftly relieved.

In fact, Feldenkrais and similar somatic methods, such as the Alexander Technique and Trager Approach, re-educate the body and, by extension, the mind. All are grounded in the belief that we have the capacity to unlearn conditioning and embrace new ways of moving to create optimal health. Liberating the body from old patterns makes it possible to free oneself from dysfunction.

As I continued with Feldenkrais, my workaholism, compulsive sleep deprivation and other modes of self-generated distress gradually melted away, leaving in its wake an emotional sea change as profound as the physical one. D.R.

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The granddaddy of somatic therapies, this technique was devised in the late 19th century by Frederick Matthias Alexander, a Shakespearean actor whose voice chronically suffered the strain of performing. He found that by avoiding unnecessary stress-causing movements, the body and mind could function with open, natural ease and efficiency.

Taught individually or in group classes, the Alexander Technique “de-educates” the body by helping clients become conscious of, then eliminate, stress-causing movement patterns; “do-less-ness” is the aim. Followers say it removes obstacles in many areas of their lives, from chronic physical pain to blocked artistic expression.

BLUE NUDE (LEAH) BY GEORGIA O’KEEFFE/SHELDON MEMORIAL ART GALLERY AND SCULPTURE GARDEN, UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA-LINCOLN

Trager Approach The hallmark of a Trager practitioner is a deeply meditative state, or “hook-up,” which its founder, Dr. Milton Trager, described as “becoming one with the energy that surrounds all living things.” You’ll be lead through freeform dancelike motions (called Mentastics) and passive gentle stretching, rhythmic rocking and range-of-motion actions on a table, all while being asked leading questions: What is soft? What is light? What is free? The goal is to release tension and instill freedom of movement. Fittingly, Trager’s logo uses Chinese characters that translate as “dancing cloud.”

life-changing treatments

Once you’ve experienced a two-therapist, four-hand massage — you’ll remember it. Possibly forever. Beyond the sheer nirvana of one therapist caressing your head, the other your feet — and then, in perfect unison, your entire body — there’s the bonus of total and absolute relaxation, of time and place forgotten.

Four-hand massage is sometimes integrated into Ayurvedic treatments, such as abhyanga and pizichilli, as well as Hawaiian lomilomi and Balinese and Thai therapies. Adding to its appeal, the symmetry of two therapists working in tandem in this dynamic dance of life is as beautiful to observe as to receive. S.M.

ERICKA MCCONNELL. PHOTOGRAPHED AT COMO SHAMBHALA AT PARROT CAY.

four-hand massage