The health spa experience
Taking respite from the pressures of the everyday is becoming an essential part of a holiday. No matter where you go, you are within easy reach of a sanctuary of quiet, where experienced hands can provide a healing touch.
You can find a health spa in virtually any location across the world. The health spa experience is a great way to explore the kinds of healing treatments — for mind, body and soul. It’s also about creating a relaxing experience that will enhance your overall health and wellbeing.
While Thai and Swedish massage therapy techniques may have led the way in modern spa culture, other cultures have learned to share their knowledge of healing. On this note, a health spa commonly involves more than just pampering. Spa and wellness centres around the world are learning to combine traditional healing philosophies and native ingredients with Western science and luxurious settings. Depending on where you are in the world, these could be organic herbs, essential oils, honey, seaweed or myriad other traditional and locally sourced ingredients.
Different cultures have their own special methods of healing, drawing on their environment and culture to help you surrender your senses, heal your soul and pamper your body.
A cultural healing experience at a health spa
It is not uncommon for health spas in different countries to draw on the healing, treatments and customs of their native cultures in the treatment package.
In Australia, health spa treatments are increasingly drawing on Aboriginal healing methods and massage techniques, and using traditional indigenous ingredients in spa products, such as plants, mud and minerals from the sea.
Polynesian cultures also have a strong tradition of massage and healing. New Zealand has long extolled the virtues of “taking to the waters” and has a history of health spas based around its fantastic geothermal pools, which have soothed, healed and pampered New Zealanders and foreign visitors for generations.
Throughout the country, hot pools range from small, spa-type mineral pools to large, thermally heated swimming pool complexes. Relaxation and rejuvenation can be either in steaming, bubbling natural mineral springs or in pools of thick, warm, therapeutic mud.
New Zealand also has an abundance of health retreats offering yoga, meditation and cleansing rituals, usually in majestic natural settings, to help with the process of destressing, detoxing and refocusing energies. The traditional Maori massage called miri miri has been practised for centuries to balance energy.
In Hawaii, where traditional healers believe the success of a treatment depends largely on an individual’s spirituality, one of the most popular treatments is the lomilomi massage, an ancient Hawaiian healing technique using long, rhythmic strokes to restore balance and harmony. The ultimate is the lomilomi pohaku (stone) massage therapy.
The modern health spa
The modern-day health spa is not just about the pampering experience but also the deeper healing process involved. A health spa treatment is all about cleansing and rejuvenating and being ready to face the world again feeling refreshed and energised.
A health spa offers treatments and packages to suit men and women of all ages. Most offer a range of massages, facials, hydrotherapies and other pampering services.
Special programs and packages to promote Health and wellbeing include stress management, yoga, tai chi, meditation, healthy eating and developing a positive mental approach to life.
A health spa offers a great opportunity for relaxation and pampering as well as a chance to improve your overall health and wellbeing.
