Silent Treatments
With so much actual—and virtual—noise assault in our daily lives, silence has become, well, golden. New approaches are going beyond digital detox programs, like the one at Mandarin Oriental spas worldwide, where guests surrender their devices on arrival, followed by a massage that targets repetitive stress zones like head, neck, and hands. We’re talking radio silence, like the new Silent Spa at Therme Laa in Austria’s famed Weinviertel region, whose strictly no-talking watery landscape was designed by architect Wolfgang Vanek. In a music-free, conversation-free room at L’Auberge de Sedona, The Quiet Mind signature treatment uses flower essences, breathing exercises, and acupressure to help guests feel fully present during a massage. Hard-core silence-seekers are discovering the two-to-five night silent retreats in the hills outside Sacramento at the Silent Stay Retreat Center, guided by author and psychologist Bruce Davis, PhD (he also hosts spiritual pilgrimages and meditation retreats in Bali and Assisi). But for a lighter commitment, The Ranch Malibu is offering a silent, one-hour meditation hike, and Rancho La Puerta’s Silent Dinner is a five-course meal sans conversation—studies suggest that even two hours of quiet can improve memory, lower blood pressure, and decrease stress.
Good Vibrations
On the flip side, there’s been a proliferation of therapies intended to cultivate inner calm by tapping into sound’s healing frequencies. At Miraval Arizona Resort & Spa, you can literally bathe in sound waves during a Himalayan Sound Bath, in which master sound healer Pamela Lancaster places hand-hammered bowls on and around the body, using water to amplify sound vibrations said to promote mental clarity and calm anxiety. At Saxon Spa in Johannesburg, a 60-minute Sound Therapy session adds gongs, bells, and cymbals to the energy-balancing symphony, while the Spa Ojai at Ojai Valley Inn does its take on Sound Energy Therapy incorporating silver Tibetan bowls, a Native American Chumash rattle, and French bamboo wind chime. And visitors to Borgo Egnazia’s Vair Spa in Puglia, Italy, can go all in with psychologist and musician Gianni Rotondo’s Nu Suun Vair (“A Real Sound”), a signature treatment that uses dance and handheld instruments to align body and mind.
Courtesy Ojai Valley Spa
Feeling the Heat
While cryotherapy has become a popular way to chill out—allegedly boosting circulation and metabolism by spending a couple minutes in a walk-in chamber as cold as -250 degrees Fahrenheit—spas are doubling down on the healing power of higher temperatures. Saunas have taken off big time, as sweating is the only proven way to detoxify the body of harmful chemicals. Helsinki’s new waterfront public sauna, Löyly, has a high-design façade enclosing three different types of saunas—including a rare smoke sauna—and The Well spa in Norway has 15 different hot-box options. Meanwhile, infrared saunas, which use radiant heat to warm the body from the inside out, are drawing acolytes to the Higher Dose at the 11 Howard Hotel in New York City as well as to the 98-degree infrared cabins at the Kulm Hotel in St. Moritz. For those who can’t deal with intense heat, slightly cooler bio-saunas with a touch more humidity are cropping up at places like the Lanserhof Tegernsee, Germany’s premier health resort in the Bavarian Alps. And the fantastical Babylonstoren in the Cape Winelands of South Africa has just unveiled a new hot spa area at their Garden Spa, which includes a heated vitality pool, Himalayan salt room (purported to help respiratory and skin issues), a steam room, and marble hammam.
Tripping Out
As technology skyrockets us into the future, many spas are channeling earth’s natural energies, using elaborate and ancient healing practices. Rosewood Mayakoba’s Kuxtal Sensor Garden Journey guides guests “on a journey through four life phases” dictated by your choice of herb selected via “energy recognition” from among 13 types indigenous to the Riviera Maya. The herb is then imbued into a scrub, wrap, and massage, followed by a private session with a shaman, yoga, meditation, or a temazcal ritual. This last practice, a Mayan dome-shaped sweat lodge fired by heated volcanic rocks, has debuted at several Yucatan spas. At the Belmond Maroma Resort & Spa, the ritual is performed at dusk with ancient chants and meditations, and finishes with a plunge into the sea at sunset; while Chable Resort & Spa does a Sun and Moon Temezcal for couples, in which a therapist guides them to communicate through intentional words and touch in the searing heat. Over in Bali, at the Ritz Carlton Mandapa in Ubud, you can sign on for a “Melukat,” or Water Blessing Ritual with a high priestess (the only woman in the country to hold this position); this sacred custom to expunge emotional pain and disease involves a visit to her temple to watch her bless water with flowers, chants, and bell ringing before pouring it ceremoniously over your head. And at the Amantaka in Laos, the Baci Ceremony kicks off with traditional Lao chanting, followed by exfoliation, massage, and a hot poultice treatment incorporating indigenous herbs. Closer to home, The Sun Dance Ritual at the Viceroy Snowmass in Aspen is based on the Ute tradition of “tagu-wuni” or “standing thirsty,” to embolden spiritual power. The ritual starts with a hydro-aromatherapy bath “to wash away heavy intentions,” followed by a detoxifying red clay body wrap and scalp massage, plus a full body massage.
Courtesy Mandarin Oriental
Surrender your phone at the Mandarin Oriental Milan and give in to a massage that targets repetitive stress zones like head, neck, and hands.
Nature Bathing
Research on the health impact of nature deprivation has led to a full-blown wellness craze that takes its inspiration from the Japanese practice of forest bathing. There’s a growing body of evidence that the practice can boost immunity and reverse stress. The Lodge at Woodloch, just 90 miles from New York City, employs three forest-bathing instructors to lead guests on walks around the resort’s 500 wooded acres in northeast Pennsylvania. Meanwhile, the Forsthofgut Hotel in the Austrian Alps is characterizing itself as Europe’s first self-styled “wellness center forest,” with barefoot walking paths (in summer!). But nature therapies are moving well beyond trails. Hacienda AltaGracia, an Auberge Resort in the mountains of Costa Rica, offers a Forest Stretching Ritual, a holistic treatment that blends Thai massage with functional stretching amidst the lush Costa Rican jungle. And you can bathe naked under the treetops at the new Sunrise Springs Spa Resort outside Santa Fe, where the Ojitos Outdoor Soak allows guests to float in a mineral-infused soaking tub on an outdoor platform surrounded by cottonwood trees.
Getting Stoned
Maybe we’re all growing more open minded, because spas seem to be ubiquitously adopting the new-age notion that crystals and gemstones are grounding. At the Anantara Spa at The Palm Dubai Resort, a visit to the Crystal and Gemstone Steam Room precedes voluminous foam created by the exfoliating action of the therapist’s traditional Turkish “kese mitt” while you soak in the heated marble of the resort’s newly opened Turkish Hammam. The Crystal Healing Ritual at The Mulia Spa at The Mulia Resort and Villas in Nusa Dua, Bali—the first spa in Asia to boast an ice-crystal fountain—attempts to rebalance the body’s energy centers by placing quartz crystals on each of the seven chakras. Across the peninsula, Ayana Resort and Spa’s Diamond Miracle Facial imbues sea quartz with pure diamond dust to achieve glowing radiance or opt for the Jade Sensation Detoxifying Massage, which alternates between hot and cold jade stones to encourage lymphatic drainage. (Both 90-minute treatments are exclusive to the fittingly named Spa on the Rocks—two private spa villas surrounded by the Indian Ocean on three sides.) To promote circulation, sink into a warm bathtub of pebbles no bigger than coffee beans in Japanese style sunaburo within the Aqua Zone circuit at The Dolder Grand in Zurich, Switzerland. Or literally be bathed in jewels in the Alpine nation’s town of Andermatt, during the 90-minute Ila Amethyst Envelopment for Inner Peace Body Wrap—the violet gem is credited with the ability to draw toxins from deep within cells as well as balance and purify emotional and energetic fields- at the Asian-inspired spa at The Chedi. The Kimpton Seafire’s spa started offering Quartz Sand Therapy, a massage delivered on a bed of warm quartz granules from the Cayman Islands. And in a very different manner of “getting stoned” – namely using Cannabidiol, or CBD, a compound made from cannabis—the St. Regis Remède Spa in Aspen, Colorado is offering a CBD Healing Customized Massage, which employs a high-grade hemp oil to calm anxiety and ease muscles after a hard day on the slopes—the only high you’ll feel, since cannabis don’t have the same effects when applied topically.