Massages
Medford, WI
Wednesday & Friday
Give someone special the promise of a rejuvenating visit to Utopia. 
What is your reason for "going green?" Want to reduce your carbon footprint, live a healthier lifestyle or just getting caught up in all the hype? No matter what your reason, going green all at once is too much for almost anyone to accomplish. Instead, try making just one new change or adding one new habit or resolve each week. You'll be surprised at how it adds up after just a year.
Reducing your impact on earth is easy. Most of us have access to fluorescent light bulbs, recycling centers and reusable grocery bags. But what about living green in regards to your health? Do you know what you're putting into your body? Not just what you eat, but what you put on your skin, what you wash your clothes in, what you breath in everyday. Living a simpler life, eating healthy, "green" foods and considering both your physical and mental health are part of living a little greener.
Simple green tips for everyday living
Change to Fluorescent Bulbs
If every house in the US changed all of the light bulbs in their house it would be equivalent to taking one million cars off the streets.
Hang Laundry Outside to Dry
Get a clothes line or rack to dry your laundry. Your clothes will last longer and you will save money.
Turn Off Computers at Night
Don't just put them to sleep. You will save an average of 4 cents a day which ads up to $14.60 a year.
Do Not Use Bottled Water
Instead of bottled water get a reusable container to carry water. You may also get a filter to make your home tap taste more like bottled water. It is definitely more cost efficient.
Turn Your Thermostat Down When You Leave the Office
Every degree lower in the winter or higher in the summer is a 10% decrease on your energy bill.
Turn Off Your Lights
An easy one. Whether at home or at your place of work; turn off your lights when you are not using them. The benefits are obvious.
Get Rid of Junk Mail
There are many services that can help you get rid of junk mail which will lead to a lot less trees being cut down.
Pay Your Bills Online
If every house in the US did this, we would save 18 million trees every year.
Purchase a Reusable Bag
You can't recycle plastic bags. Instead, get yourself a reusable bag to carry your purchases home in.
Browse a full list of ways to go green at Gaiam Life.
Adopted from the Center for Massage Therapy Continuing Education. 2009.
Benefits of massage go far beyond healing sore muscles
Live a little healthier and greener. Learn the benefits of touch. Do we overuse pharmaceuticals for a wide array of illnesses which can be alleviated simply by massage therapy? Read more to find out.
An increasing number of research studies show massage reduces heart rate, lowers blood pressure, increases blood circulation and lymph flow, relaxes muscles, improves range of motion, and increases endorphins (enhancing medical treatment). Although therapeutic massage does not increase muscle strength, it can stimulate weak, inactive muscles and, thus, partially compensate for the lack of exercise and inactivity resulting from illness or injury. It also can hasten and lead to a more complete recovery from exercise or injury.
Studies funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) have found massage beneficial in improving weight gain in HIV-exposed infants and facilitating recovery in patients who underwent abdominal surgery. At the University of Miami School of Medicine's Touch Research Institute, researchers have found that massage is helpful in decreasing blood pressure in people with hypertension, alleviating pain in migraine sufferers and improving alertness and performance in office workers.
Office workers massaged regularly were more alert, performed better and were less stressed than those who weren't massaged. Massage therapy decreased the effects of anxiety, tension, depression, pain, and itching in burn patients. Abdominal surgery patients recovered more quickly after massage. Premature infants who were massaged gained more weight and fared better than those who weren't. Autistic children showed less erratic behavior after massage therapy.
According to the American Massage Therapy Association (AMTA), massage helps both physically and mentally.
"Often times people are stressed in our culture. Stress-related disorders make up between 80-and-90 percent of the ailments that bring people to family-practice physicians. What they require is someone to listen, someone to touch them, someone to care. That does not exist in modern medicine.
One of the complaints heard frequently is that physicians don't touch their patients any more. Touch just isn't there. Years ago massage was a big part of nursing. There was so much care, so much touch, so much goodness conveyed through massage. Now nurses for the most part are as busy as physicians. They're writing charts, dealing with insurance notes, they're doing procedures and often there is no room for massage any more.
I believe massage therapy is absolutely key in the healing process not only in the hospital environment but because it relieves stress, it is obviously foundational in the healing process any time and anywhere."
Joan Borysenko - Massage Journal Interview, Fall 1999
Physical Benefits of Therapeutic Massage (Source: AMTA)
- Helps relieve stress and aids relaxation
- Helps relieve muscle tension and stiffness
- Alleviates discomfort during pregnancy
- Fosters faster healing of strained muscles and sprained ligaments; reduces pain and swelling; reduces formation of excessive scar tissue
- Reduces muscle spasms
- Provides greater joint flexibility and range of motion
- Enhances athletic performance; Treats injuries caused during sport or work
- Promotes deeper and easier breathing
- Improves circulation of blood and movement of lymph fluids
- Reduces blood pressure
- Helps relieve tension-related headaches and effects of eye-strain
- Enhances the health and nourishment of skin
- Improves posture
- Strengthens the immune system
- Treats musculoskeletal problems
- Rehabilitation post operative
- Rehabilitation after injury
Mental Benefits of Massage Therapy (Source: AMTA)
- Fosters peace of mind
- Promotes a relaxed state of mental alertness
- Helps relieve mental stress
- Improves ability to monitor stress signals and respond appropriately
- Enhances capacity for calm thinking and creativity
- Emotional Benefits
- Satisfies needs for caring nurturing touch
- Fosters a feeling of well-being
- Reduces levels of anxiety
- Creates body awareness
- Increases awareness of mind-body connection
For more information on the various massage techniques offered by Utopia, visit our massage services web page or give us a call at 715-748-2600.
Adopted from Holistic Online Journal. 2007. http://www.holisticonline.com/Massage/mas_benefits.htm
Preventing build-up and getting the toxins out of your body
The body needs to cleanse itself of toxins each day. Toxins the body cannot eliminate are stored in fatty tissue, joints, muscles, and the brain. These toxins can clog cell membrane walls which are then unable to absorb enough nutrition to support normal cell functioning. Over time, this leads to reduced vitality and weakened immune and lymphatic systems. You can see this visually on pH strips as toxins tend to be acidic and reduce the pH balance. At Utopia, the AquaVida foot spa helps the body rebalance itself, improve pH, and increase energy levels.
How do toxins build up?
There are 500,000 different chemicals used to make, lubricate, clean, coat, wrap, and finish the products we use. Each year over 5,000 new chemical substances are invented. And while our bodies have complex systems that remove toxins, namely the lymphatic, skin, liver and kidneys, they are no match for this onslaught.
Heavy metals, minerals, synthetic chemicals and hormones, even human and animal wastes are in the water we drink, the foods we eat, the clothes we wear, the houses we live in, the air we breathe, and the cosmetics we use.
Learn about natural products available at Utopia >
Our body's natural cycle is disturbed by trauma, stress and unhealthy diets and lifestyles. These disturbances raise the levels of impurities in our body. Toxins enter our bodies through the epidermis, the digestive system and the lungs. The skin is the largest organ in our body and because it is permeable it easily absorbs toxins. The scalp is especially permeable to toxins. Consider the numbers of toxic chemicals put in your hair to color or bleach, shampoo, condition, and treat it.
Commercial laundry and cleaning fluids, air pollution, chlorine, insecticides, herbicides and steroid injected meats are just a few of the toxins we are exposed to every day. Add to this the stresses of modern life and you have the recipe for toxic meltdown. These high accumulations seem to choke the body's own cleansing system, draining our mental and physical energy.
The human body uses electrical impulses from the brain to function. All cells in our body produce bio-energy. When this energy level is high, the cells function properly (i.e. nutritional absorption takes place, toxins are discharged). When we get diseases or are overly stressed, our cells are affected and the bio-energy level is dramatically reduced. Therefore cells cannot function at their best and eliminate toxins efficiently. The AquaVida System can aide the natural cycle.
Cosmetics are currently below the radar when it comes to identifying toxins. TEA (triethanolamine), DEA (diethanolamine), and MEA (monoethanolamine) are commonly used in cosmetics in the USA. Their use is restricted in Europe as they are known carcinogens. Almost 50% of cosmetics containing ethoxylated surfactants were found to contain dioxane, a carcinogen. Most shampoos contain Sodium or Ammonium Lauryl Sulfate, which caused eye damage, central nervous system depression, and even death to animals that were exposed to it.
Our bodies are bombarded by toxins.
In 1999 a noted author and activist, had his blood tested for 150 different commonly used chemicals. His blood had 84 synthetic compounds, including 13 different Dioxins, 31 different PCB's, DDT, lead, organochlorine pesticides, chlorine, and malathion, etc.
How the AquaVida system works?
AquaVida offers a system to rebalance the body, in a safe, simple, user friendly way. The key to this system is a special, high-tech array that emits a bio-energetic resonance into the water that then passes through the pathways of the body.
Using the feet as a conduit to improve ones' overall health by unblocking vital energy pathways is not new. The Chinese use of foot manipulation is ancient. In Egypt, archaeologist Ed Case discovered pictures dating back to 2000 BC that documented foot treatments.
Eccrine sweat, from your feet, is composed primarily of water with various salts, heavy metals and organic compounds in solution. It is a filtrate of plasma, a colorless hypotonic solution that includes sodium, chloride, potassium, urea, bicarbonate, ammonia, uric acid, phosphorus, fatty acids, and other metabolic wastes.
The AquaVida process makes use of the body's natural catharsis and works by energizing the water to attract positive and negative ions from both the water and the body. When the foot spa is turned on the array emits a bio-energetic resonance that travels through the water and the body, an electrolytic reaction takes place. The water in the foot spa stimulates the body and creates a positive effect on the balancing of our well-being.
There are numerous ways to detoxify. The AquaVida foot spa is a safe, efficient, convenient, and easy way to Detoxify.
AquaVida Foot Spa is not recommended for:
- People with a pacemaker or using a heartbeat regulating machine
- People who have had an organ transplant
- People who suffer from psychotic episodes, seizures
- People with epilepsy
- During pregnancy or lactating
- Extreme blood pressure problems
- Open wounds
- Recently had surgery
The AquaVida Foot Spa is NOT a Medical Device. This is a hydrotherapy foot spa. Always consult a Physician if you are receiving ongoing treatment for any medical condition not mentioned above, or have any questions about your health. If in doubt, consult your physician before using the AquaVida Foot Spa. For more information or to schedule your foot detoxification appointment, please contact Utopia.
Utopia offers 100% natural products that help reduce toxic build-up in your body. Learn more >
Adopted from AquaVida USA. 2006. http://www.aquavidausa.com/Detoxification-Info.html.
