It's no longer enough to work on the "outside" of your looks and health. Wellness spas and preventive health-focused medical spas reach into your "inner body", address sources of hyper-tension and stress, rough skin, even sleeping disorders, offering tension releasing deep tissue massage therapies, hydrotherapy, spiritual healing, sexual health guidance, colonoscopy and digestive fitness evaluation, skin and facial skin rejuvenation treatments, cosmetic and aesthetic procedures in a refined blend of Western and Oriental medical traditions, and offered in a relaxed setting.

Tip #1 Aromatherapy Massage. The top medspas, offering day spa cosmetic services, branch out to increasingly popular and effective treatments such as aromatherapy massage. Exploiting the penetrating nature of unaltered botanic oils and essences for deep penetration and tissue stimulation, aromatherapy massage combines focused pressure...such as shiatsu...while the massage therapist gently moves pressure into knotted tissue and muscle areas, working to relax and release bound-up tension...meanwhile oil essence is worked into your tissues to enhance healing and overall skin health. A half hour to hour session can leave you calm, relaxed, your skin muscles and skeleton loosened for a feeling of tranquility.

Tip #2 Deep Tissue Massage Therapy. Wellness spas are a safe haven for people seeking reduction in tensions, stress, unwanted rough skin When accumulated tension builds deeper within your body, surface touching lacks the vitality to address the underling tension. Solution? Deep tissue massage therapy. Tendons, ligaments, muscles, your skeleton and core nervous system all converge under the subtle applied arts of the deep tissue massage therapist.

What you're looking for is the deep tissue massage that will work out knotted tightening "binds" in the integrated network of ligament, tendon muscle, nerve and skeleton. What will you experience? Some initial discomfort as the massage therapist presses into tender areas...and when your session is over, you'll feel this subtle all-over feeling of relaxation and stimulation. The closest related therapy is chiropractic, which also delivers neuro-muscular pressure and skeletal adjustment in integrated therapies.

Tip #3 Classic Thai Massage. Centuries before modern chiropractic therapy principles became understood, Oriental natural physicians experimented in manipulating body energy systems, identifying energy pathways which could be stimulated in order to relieve disease symptoms or, proactively, to promote enhanced health. Modern wellness spas offer skilled therapists who can artfully deliver a series of Thai massage therapies focusing on skeletal adjustment, tissue stimulation, releasing accumulated tension deeply bound into tendons and ligaments. Sessions can last up to two hours, and your Thai massage therapist will combine hand and feet techniques in an integrative manual therapy to stimulate your body...inducing passive stretching similar to yoga and Tai chi.

Tip #4 Infrared Sauna. Medspas practice a range of detoxification therapies including the popular infrared sauna therapy. Imagine resting comfortably in a cooler infrared sauna...temperatures between 110 to 130 rather than the 190+ degree scorching from traditional Finnish saunas. High tech but safe infrared energy is easily, and deeply absorbed by your body and, according to practitioners' theory, can stimulate the deep-tissue release of stored toxins held by our skin, the body's largest organ. You sweat, your body's circulation receives a stimulating boost, you leave your infrared sauna relaxed, refreshed.

Tip #5 Craniosacral Therapy. Exploring the "possible" as much as the "real" separates the truly avant-garde medical spas from the traditionalists. Yes, having a pool, golf and tennis nearby is a plus. However, New Age theories about brain activity, toxicity and disease formation suggest that the brain may operate with rhythmic patterning unique to itself. Craniosacral therapy exploits this subtle possibility with a hands-on therapy...light touch...sensitively probing and seeking feedback...releasing pressure from cranial bones (sutures where the bones connect) in an effort to identify brain patterns and signals of imbalance and potential disease. Unconventional, even far out? Yes. But wellness spas turn over every rock in the possibility of identifying a health therapy that's just right for each visitor.

Bottom Line. Will all your physical tension simply vanish in one session as if by magic? Unlikely. But your medspa medical advisor will teach you the principles of regular exercise, stretching, yoga and posture, healthy foods, skin health strategies, detoxification, disease symptom recognition, plus a range of relaxation techniques.