Spa days - a guide to the ultimate spa treatments

When do you actually just stop?

Stop checking Facebook, What’s App messages, running around after the kids, rushing to meetings, going to the gym, getting the shopping…

Just stop doing, stop thinking and relax. Can you remember when?

If you can’t, then for the sake of your mental and physical well-being you should!

Our quick and simple guide to the UK’s ultimate spa days and treatments might just help save you from the pressure cooker that’s modern life. Take five minutes now to stop, relax and read on:

1. Herbal Laconium

Lavender, chamomile and lemon balm, all herbs that aid relaxation and used in everything from bath salts to herbal teas. Combining these types of herbs with a steam room experience that cleans and clears the body and mind can be the ultimate way to leave your worries behind.

A Herbal laconium spa is one of the gentlest spa day treatments with a temperature of between 40-60° and relative humidity of 10-20%, the treatment is recommended for a 30 minute relaxation.

The spa room provides a natural infusion of herbs with relaxing bursts of gentle steam, spa treatment like this provides a good starting point to warm your body through. Clear your mind and relax your muscles prior to using other more intensive experiences.

2. The Vitality Pool

Intuitively, we know the feeling of floating in water is freeing and therapeutic. But why it feels so good and the positive effects on our bodies are lesser known.

The science behind the good feeling is water molecules produce negative ions which are basically oxygen ions with an extra electron attached.

Negative ions are most common in nature and particularly around moving water or after a storm. So the taste in the air and feeling you get by the sea, near a waterfall or after a thunderstorm is your body being soaked in the benefits of negative ions.

A Vitality Pool recreates this experience with moving water, indoors, or preferably outdoors, enabling you to float in negative ions, flooding your body with their grounding and relaxing benefits. Countering the positive ions we take on in our busy, indoor lives.

The best Vitality Pools also include features to aid your water therapy such as outdoor recliners, water massage jets and even water curtains. So go on, immerse yourself in ions!

3. Rasul Spa

While the science of water helps us feel good, the spiritual benefits of cleansing the body and mind has long been part of Arabian tradition. From the hammams of Morocco to the Rasuls of Egypt, the Middle East understands the purifying effects of water.

A Rasul spa day mirrors the tradition with some spas recreating Rasul chambers with beautiful, ornate tiling and stone, and lighting that feels like an Arabian night in the desert.

The treatment itself combines mud glorious mud, with water and steam. Mineral-rich mud is applied to the face and body, left to dry, then scrubbed and washed off. The lights are dimmed and you are left to relax under thousands of twinkling stars as a steam room cycle begins. Then you can drift away into your own Middle Eastern meditation!

4. Cold Therapy

The physical challenges of modern sport spurned the development of cold therapy. Sports stars use cold treatments to repair damaged or aching muscles, reducing blood flow, swelling or inflammation.

But the benefits of cold therapy have extended beyond simply repairing damaged muscles to aiding faster recovery of healthy muscles and other health benefits. Hence footballers sitting in ice baths after every match.

Now, the benefits of cold therapy like this have shifted from the sports field to the spa offering you the chance to:

• boost your blood circulation
• reduce inflammation
• improve your immune system
• balance your hormones
• improve sleep quality
• produce more endorphins to make you feel good

A selection of different Cold Therapy spa days are available now including the World’s only “Snowstorm” experience at Ye Olde Bell Hotel & Spa in Nottinghamshire. A shower experience where you press a button to be covered in real snowflakes. Brrrr!

Other cold therapy experiences include showers that alternate between hot and cold and self-administered cold bucket showers, that you can tip onto yourself pre or post sauna. But only for the brave!

5. Salt Inhalation

As well as creating stress and strife, modern life has also given rise to respiratory and auto-immune issues for many people.

Whether from birth because of modern medical interventions or brought on through the effects of pollution and chemicals in the air, respiratory problems with sinuses and allergies are a lot more common.

To clear the air ways and relax, Salt Inhalation treatment can help combat these issues. A salt wall stimulates a marine climate like being on or near to the sea. Treatment rooms are at a very comfortable, warm room temperature of 25°C and you can stay in as long as you like.

The addition of low level lighting in a salt inhalation room creates a space for those wanting quiet time to relax and reflect, while breathing clearly. Now inhale, exhale, and relax!

If you want to just stop and relax, Ye Olde Bell Hotel & Spa has 10 different spa experiences from which to choose your ultimate spa day heaven. Book now.