3 Ways To Relax and Refresh This Summer

Number 4 would be "Get a massage", I'm sure.

Mmmm . . . mellowberry!

How 'bout a relaxation shot?



Coming to a store near you.

This Really Burns My Massage Cream

From An Article About Getting A Massage
I Read This Morning
(Excuse my rant. Comments for the article were closed, but I had to get this out.)

No, it is not acceptable for you to bring your favorite moisturizer to your massage and expect your therapist to use it! Professional massage creams, oils and lotions are specially formulated and tested for their intended use and are suitable for even the most sensitive skin. I guarantee you, your therapist has a professionally formulated product which they are comfortable using which will feel wonderful and be great for your skin!

How Stress Affects Your Skin

Massage therapy lowers the levels of cortisol in the body,
so getting a massage is good for your complexion!

Do You Multi-Task??

Stop Multi-Tasking And Lower Your Stress!

Tips For Getting Your Best Sleep Ever

Why the tricks for better sleeping are different for adults than babies.

The Theft of Yoga

Yoga is severed in America's collective consciousness from Hinduism.

Think Twice Before Using A Tester

100% Contaminated

I Could Eat My Weight In These

Great for get-togethers too!
These are big-big on flavor and low in calories, so everyone can enjoy!

Marinated Mushrooms

Massage Eases Depression! Who Knew?!

Massage therapy may help relieve symptoms of depression, a new review of the medical literature hints. Read about it.

Spa Wrap

Recipe from the Immersion Spa at The Water Club, Atlantic City, New Jersey - Geoffrey Zakarian

Test-kitchen notes: Make the quinoa the night before, and refrigerate it, so it's ready to go and holds together better.

Superfood Wrap
(4 servings)

4 large organic whole-wheat tortillas
½ cup cooked quinoa
¼ organic plain yogurt
Juice of 2 organic lemons
2 tbsp organic olive oil
¼ cup chopped, seedless green olives
1 large heirloom tomato, thickly sliced
1 avocado, peeled and thickly sliced
1 or 2 pinches of sea salt and cracked pepper
2 cups baby arugula or watercress

In a bowl, combine the quinoa, yogurt, lemon juice, olive oil, salt, and pepper. Lay the tortillas on a flat surface or directly onto sandwich-wrap paper, and spoon the quinoa mixture equally over them over them, followed by equal portions of the tomato, avocado, olives, greens, and tofu. Roll each tortilla burrito-style, and keep or transport whole. Cut on an angle, into three pieces, before serving.

Next Catonsville Spa & Massage Dates Set

I will next be at the Catonsville Wellness Center from
Tues., Nov. 25th to Tues., Dec. 2nd.

Pre-book your facial, massage or spa treatment for the best rate!

Thank You!

A special thank you to all the wonderful people I met during my first week at the Catonsville Wellness Center. You made it a great experience for me.
For those of you who don't know - I have expanded my practice to the Baltimore area, my plan is to be there once a month, and am beginning with space in the Catonsville Wellness Center.
Many of you asked if I would be offering a plan similiar to the Spa Wellness Program we have at the spa in Florida. My answer is yes! It will be a monthly massage package very similar to the Spa Wellness Program.

Just Because It's Organic . . .

This past week, I gave a talk on the essentials of good skin care at the St. Petersburg Yacht Club. In my talk, I mentioned how things I read sometimes inspire my postings to this blog. Just now I was reading about a line of organic skin care products. Green! Green Green! Interested? You bet. They must be good for me, right? Not so fast. As I stated in my talk, just because a product is labeled or marketed as organic, doesn't mean it's good for us. Well, I did some research into this super-premium organic skin care line. I began by looking at Step One - the facial cleanser. And what did I find?? Their lemon cleanser would make a better floor polish. It is heavy on lemon and also contains irritating balm mint oil, making it a problem for all skin types. As a member of the audience at the St. Petersburg Yacht Club was agreeing with me, he reminded the audience, hemlock is organic, but we wouldn't want to drink it!

Don't Procrastinate. Pomegranate.

Pomegranate Martini Facial

Freshly stirred, our pomegranate martini is a skin-loving cocktail that delivers radiant skin. The ancient Greeks believed that the pomegranate was a powerful fruit, and today's scientists have determined that the pomegranate has powerful and valuable properties when used in beauty treatments. Skin-brightening pomegranate, rich in ellagic acid (reputed to have age-reversing properties), is combined with anti-oxidant laden strawberries. Honey, well known for its powerful humectant abilities, along with skin-softening buttermilk, high in lactic acid, are added for an outstanding renewing and skin-smoothing facial. You will notice a difference in your skin after one treatment.

Best Massage Ever Spa

Whole Food Health

A sliced carrot looks like the human eye. The pupil, iris and radiating lines look just like the human eye... and YES, science now shows carrots greatly enhance blood flow to and function of the eyes.

A tomato has four chambers and is red. The heart has four chambers and is red. All of the research shows tomatoes are loaded with lycopine and are indeed pure heart and blood food.

Grapes hang in a cluster that has the shape of the heart. Each grape looks like a blood cell and all of the research today shows grapes are also profound heart and blood vitalizing food.

A walnut looks like a little brain, a left and right hemisphere, upper cerebrums and lower cerebellums. Even the wrinkles or folds on the nut are just like the neo-cortex. We now know walnuts help develop more than three (3) dozen neuron-transmitters for brain function.

Kidney beans actually heal and help maintain kidney function and yes, they look exactly like the human kidneys.

Celery, Bok Choy, Rhubarb and many more look just like bones. These foods specifically target bone strength. Bones are 23% sodium and these foods are 23% sodium. If you don't have enough sodium in your diet, the body pulls it from the bones, thus making them weak. These foods replenish the skeletal needs of the body.

Avocadoes, Eggplant and Pears target the health and function of the womb and cervix of the female - they look just like these organs. Today's research shows that when a woman eats one avocado a week, it balances hormones, sheds unwanted birth weight, and prevents cervical cancers. And how profound is this? It takes exactly nine (9) months to grow an avocado from blossom to ripened fruit. There are over 14,000 photolytic chemical constituents of nutrition in each one of these foods (mo dern science has only studied and named about 141 of t hem).

Figs are full of seeds and hang in twos when they grow. Figs increase the mobility of male sperm and increase the numbers of Sperm as well to overcome male sterility.

Sweet potatoes look like the pancreas and actually balance the glycemic index of diabetics.

Olives assist the health and function of the ovaries.

Oranges, Grapefruits, and other citrus fruits look just like the mammary glands of the female and actually assist the health of the breasts and the movement of lymph in and out of the breasts.

Onions look like the body's cells. Today's research shows onions help clear waste materials from all of the body cells. They even produce tears which wash the epithelial layers of the eyes. A working companion, garlic, also helps eliminate waste materials and dangerous free radicals from the body.

I'm Getting My Ears Candled . . . Tomorrow

I can tell I have an excess of wax in my left ear because I can hear it "pop." So I know I'm overdue for having my ears cleaned (with ear candling, not Q-tips which push the wax further down.) I also have sinus problems and have found that keeping my ears clean with candling has helped. Did you know ear candling provides immediate relief for sinusitis? You can read more about Nonna's Ear Candling on the spa's treatment page. http://bestmassageever.com/spa_treatments

To Relieve Stress - Take An Ultra-Mini Vacation

Take an Ultra-Mini Vacacation --without telling your boss!
1. Turn your phone off and leave the office to take your lunch break.
"Our bodies are designed to deal with stress intermittently, not 24 hours a day," says David Posen, M.D., the author of The Little Book of Stress Relief. "Removing the source of stress, even for a short time, allows your body to recover, restore, and relax."
2. Put your favorite vacay snap on your desktop.
Upload some of your favorite vacation snaps to your computer and use them as your background and screensaver. Vacation researchers even use this trick! "Viewing pictures of a restful scene allows you to recapture the feelings associated with the image," says Posen.

3. Reminisce about your vacation with your coworkers. Psychologists say the more you talk about a recent vacation, the better it lodges in your memory. George Loewenstein, Ph.D., a professor of psychology at Carnegie Mellon University says, "You may think it's cheesy to give a slideshow but the benefit of boring your friends and neighbors is that you're more likely to retain the experience yourself."
4. Go outside more often.
Chances are, you spent much of your trip outdoors. Keep it up when you return home. Columbia University researchers found that exposure to the negative air ions created when air molecules are exposed to sunlight, radiation, moving air, and water generated feelings of alertness, mental clarity, and elevated mood. Think about how often you were outdoors on your most recent vacation. Perhaps you were sightseeing in a city, lounging on a beach or hiking. All outdoors! You can recreate the sounds of the outdoors at home as well. For instance, the steady, calming sound of waves helps relax your body. Listen carefully on your next spa visit and you'll hear a variety of ambient, outdoor sounds in all the rooms. "The natural rhythm of the waves' ebb and flow helps slow the mind and relax the body," says Alan Keck, Psy.D., a psychologist with a private practice in Altamonte Springs, Florida, whose specializes in clinical hypnosis. You can download your own nature-sound mp3 for $2 at soundsleeping.com.
6. Breathe deeply.
You probably didn't notice, but when you were on vacation, you were breathing more deeply. Strange as it seems, most people don't notice their breathing until they are asked to focus on it. For instance, during a massage we tend to focus on our breathing because truthfully, there's nothing else to do. In a massage we are being asked to slow down and come to a place of rest. Try some meditation by focusing on your breathing. Close your eyes and breathe deeply through your nose for 5 to 10 minutes. "Deep breaths stretch out muscles in your chest and diaphragm and alert your mind that you're ready to relax," says Peg Baim, clinical director of the training center at the Bensen-Henry Institute for Mind Body Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital.
7. Make your own aromatherapy.

Time for a confessional. When I go on vacation, I have an uncontrollable urge to see how many hotel shampoos, body washes, conditioners, moisturizers etc. I can stuff in my suitcase. Just recently, I have been using some of the shampoo I "picked up" from my hotel in London. Our olfactory nerve is our strongest, which is why a fragrance can so easily transport us to the past. When I use the London shampoo, the fragrance takes me back and I have an ultra-mini vacation in the shower. Seek out fragrant items when you travel next and bring them back. Rachel Herz, PhD. and author of The Scent of Desire says, "Scent becomes strongly connected to whatever you felt when you first came into contact with it." The parts of our brains that regulate smell and memory are closely related. This is why we have a signature fragrance at the spa and why all our products in The Best Stuff line carry the same fragrance - so when you use the products at home, you will remember your spa visit and how great you felt!

Avoid The Stress Of The News

Have you seen this, yet? current tv

Look for it, but I warn you, it's addictive. But in a feel-good, couch-potato-sorta-way.

De-News 2 De-Stress

Recently, I was thinking about something that I read that Dr. Andrew Weil wrote about feeling better by not watching the news. Now, for a CNN, Andy Cooper and NPR addict, this is hard to wrap my head around, but I had begun to notice that listening to the news was stressing me out. So I am resisting Andy's siren song and not allowing myself to be bombarded with all the grim news. So far, I have found I can keep up with current events by reading the news online -that way I can choose what to read and when. So if you're feeling stressed, change the channel.