Sometimes you need to pause...and that's exactly what my husband and I did. For Christmas, we gave ourselves an early gift of self-care.
Pause was running a special Ultimate Recovery package, so we decided to try it - Cryotherapy, Infrared sauna + cold plunge, and a salt float.
First off, Justin, was amazing. We were warmly greeted by him. He checked us in and walked us through EVERYTHING. Super kind, so helpful, and friendly. Thank you, Justin!
We started with 3 min of cryotherapy (at -166 degrees), followed by 30 min of infrared sauna (at 150 degrees) + cold plunge (at 44 degrees), and wrapped up the day with a 60 min float therapy session.
If I could sum up today's experience in two words: WILD & wonderful.
I've been interested in trying cryotherapy for awhile, after reading about the benefits regarding helping with pain and inflammation, along with improved circulation, increased energy, better sleep and improved mood. We were both given socks, sandals, gloves, and a headband to protect our ears. When I first started the session I felt myself gulping a bit for breaths as the waves of cryo clouds rose up around me. But, I settled myself, closed my eyes, and focused on my breathing. You did have a choice of listening to music, but we chose to just focus on our breathing. The cryo chamber didn't lock, so you could get out at any time if need be. There was also a cool window that could lower if you felt it was getting to be too much. And, they let you know when you were halfway through. We both remarked how cold our shins and forearms got by the end of the 3 minutes!
Next up was the infrared sauna and cold plunge! Infrared sauna treatments are different than traditional saunas. Taken from the pause website: these infrared saunas produce heat through a penetrating wavelength that can enter your body's soft tissue and deliver benefits on a cellular level. The infrared, radiant heat penetrates achy joints, tired muscles, and frayed connective tissues, flushes out harmful detritus, boosts immunity, moisturizes, heals, refreshes skin, and enhances metabolic function.
For 30 minutes we went back and forth between hot and cold. We roughly did 15 min of 150 degree sauna into 30 sec bursts of the cold plunge at 44 degrees, dried ourselves off, and then back into the warm, relaxing sauna. The plunge was WAYYYYY COLDER than I thought it would be. Ha! The goal is to plunge to up around your neck line and keep your feet in, but we both ended up raising our legs up out of the cold water. Quite an interesting experience!
Then...we got to the F L O A T. The website says: Drift into a deep mediative state, loosing all sensation of your body and let the mind expand and explore.
And that's...exactly...what...we...did. You sink your body into 10 inches of warm water therapeutically infused with 1,000 pounds of healing Epsom salts. We both had our own pod with controls for the light inside and the meditation music. And for 60 minutes we drifted...half awake, half dreaming. Words can't really describe how absolutely amazing this experience was.
I cannot recommend this place enough. Our favorites were the infrared sauna and the float. We will definitely be back. read more