BETTER
BY SPA Luxury or a modern-day necessity? Spa breaks are becoming the norm to treat mind, body… and your mum!
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f your vision of a spa session acceptable – and we can carry that involves a face pack and a slice of feeling of being taken cared for with cucumber over each eye, then we’re us for a period of time. And very often raising a carefully-trimmed eyebrow that can help us cope better in despair. with stress.” Similarly, if it Obviously, breaks can involves waddling No 1 on most spa come with a bit of a price around in a fluffy visitor’s wish-list is a tag when set against day white towelling massage and most sessions, but they are robe clutching a experts agree totally different beasts. A glass of prosecco, massages reduce one-day experience will then you’ve been stress and alleviates normally offer only a watching too muscle tension single treatment, whereas many reality docu-soaps on TV. Although these are the images that help scientists pour scorn on exoticsounding treatments they offer, there is one inescapable fact: there’s nothing like a day of pampering to put you in the right frame of mind to face the world. The health benefits of visiting a spa cannot be overstated, particularly for mental well-being. Shackled by responsibilities and day-to-day pressures, the first thing that’s sacrificed is ‘me time’, partly because you think it’s self-indulgent but largely because of the cost. But is good physical and mental health really a luxury? Can you put a price on feeling good? As Virginia Sadock, a professor of psychiatry at New York University says: “Going to a spa is a way of being taken care of that is psychologically and culturally
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PROPERTY NEWS
breaks provide the chance to step off life’s treadmill with a number of carefullyselected elements, giving breathing space to totally unwind, relieve aches and pain, improve general physical condition through diet and exercise… and probably help you get a decent night’s sleep.
