Energy Medicine: A 2009 Top 10 Spa Trend

SpaFinder, the global spa resource, is the publisher and source of "Top 10 Spa Trends To Watch In 2009". Excerpted directly from the December 2008 Blog Post by Susie Ellis, the Spa Insider, the following information relates to energy medicine.

"Everyone’s ‘talking about energy,’ and for 2009 the spa industry will follow suit, with a lot of high-voltage buzz around ‘energy medicine’ and therapies like Reiki; Qi Gong; chakra balancing; healing touch; magnetic, light and sound therapy; and acupuncture. While there’s charged debate about how to define these practices, whether they’re in fact ‘new,’ or whether there’s enough scientific evidence to warrant our attention—the energy medicine trend within both the spa industry and the medical establishment is clear. For instance, Dr. Oz of Oprah fame recently argued that ‘the next big frontier of medicine…is energy medicine,’ and former Surgeon General and Canyon Ranch CEO Richard Carmona recently reported that energy medicine is one of the emerging science areas they’re pursuing for their forward-thinking medical resorts.

The discussion on the medical side (centering on electromagnetic forces and laser beams), is of course quite different from terms like ‘qi,’ ‘chi,’ ‘prana,’ ‘chakras’ and ‘doshas’ used in the spa sector, where the emphasis is on clearing imbalances in a body’s energy field to promote healing of body, mind and spirit. Interesting spa examples emerging: bite-size doses of energy medicine along with traditional massage at properties like Conrad Maldives Rangali Island—the extensive use of visiting consultant-‘practitioners’ at Thai resorts like Trisara, Chiva-Som and the new Six Senses Destination Spa Phuket—Canyon Ranch Resorts’ ‘Healing Energy’ menu with offerings like Polarity, Acutonics (think tuning forks…) and Jin Shin Jyutsu, which is said to balance energy pulses via a practitioner holding various energy ‘locks.’

Acupuncture was ushered onto the U.S. stage via Nixon’s high-profile visits to China in the 70s, and the buzz around energy medicine today stems from an increased receptiveness to healing traditions from other cultures courtesy of phenomena like the Internet and the recent Beijing Olympics, etc. Look for a whole spectrum of energy medicines to be increasingly ‘on the table’ in the experimental theater that is the modern spa. The enlightened approach? An open mind, along with encouragement for solid scientific verification. After all, there’s a great deal we still don’t know about the ‘body electric.’"