Ancient spas more relevant today for mind and body

Mineral-spring spas were once regarded as shrines by ancient societies everywhere. The waters of the springs were said to have magical powers to heal all kinds of ills.

Everyone was able to avail themselves of the bounties of nature until spa treatments were administered through exclusive and expensive spa resorts located at the source of mineral-rich freshwater and seawater, and mud that became the exclusive right of royalty.

Later, spa treatments were considered rather extravagant and even decadent. The last 20 years have seen a phenomenal increase in fast-paced living. High-maintenance lifestyles that involve juggling home, careers, child care and hectic social agendas have caused much physical stress and mental strain.

This has increased interest in holistic remedies, Eastern philosophies and complementary therapies that benefit the mind, body and soul. With the level of disposable income also on the increase, and a desire to spend money on personal wellbeing, the demand for spa-type treatments has led to more variety and greater accessibility. Apart from services offered at high street and beauty establishments, Body Shop recently invented the take- home spa treatment.

Its spa range retains the philosophy of using only natural ingredients and offers six luxurious, high-performance body treatments designed to deliver benefits in the seclusion of the home environment.

The rationale is why go out when you can stay in?

It was Hippocrates, the father of medicine who said that the way to health was a scented bath and massage every day. Like the sage of ancient times, Body Shop too believes that a bath ritual is a sensual way to achieve a state of deep mental and physical relaxation and taken in solitude is the perfect place to reclaim one's sense of wellbeing.

However, privacy was not always the order of the day.

Previously, bathing took place in natural springs and streams in the open air, although the custom of creating special rooms for bathing still dates from prehistoric times. Bathing was important not only for cleanliness but also as a social activity and a religious ritual. While bathrooms were incorporated in the palaces and urban houses of many ancient civilizations, public baths achieved their most elaborate form in Imperial Rome and soon became the center of Roman social life.

The public bath or hammam was of special importance to the Islamic empire. The Muslim bathhouse included a dressing room, cold bath and warm bath clustered around a domed, central steam chamber. The hammam survives today in Muslim countries and in Europe it developed into the Turkish bath.

Spas with hot springs, like in Ciater, West Java, have been widely used for medicinal baths since ancient times. Natural hot springs are exploited the world over, even today. In Japan, the tradition is to channel the hot water into a large central pool surrounded by steps on which the bathers sit. The type of bathhouse known as a Finnish sauna, in which steam is produced by throwing water onto heated stones, has been adopted in many an affluent home and most health clubs around the world, including Jakarta. Today, the sauna is often used with swimming pools; a plunge in the pool substituting for the Finnish custom of dashing from a steamy sauna into a cold stream or snowbank.

Vogue magazine hit the nail on the head when it claimed that spa culture seems to be the way forward. This is a fact as health spas offer more than just body care -- they are a sanctum from everyday life, offering a wide range of treatments, such as hydrotherapy, massage and body scrubs and the larger ones combining all this with sports and fitness facilities, even offering healthy meals and drinks.

Javana Spa, high in the mountains of West Java, is one such place that combines hikes in the rain forest, massage, yoga, dips in an onsen (the Japanese sulfur bath of healing waters), in this case taken directly from Mount Salak's hot springs, with three meals a day of gourmet cuisine complementing the fitness and treatment program customized for each guest.

To make life even more free of care, visitors are picked up from their doorstep and driven to the Javana Spa, so that they can witness for themselves how wondrously healing nature's bounties really are. (Mehru Jaffer)