‘Fancy a date next week?” Sixteen years on and my boyfriend, Mr Love (yes, his real name), can still make my heart pound with the idea of a date. What could he be thinking? Dinner in a fancy new restaurant? Seeing a hot-ticket play? Whisking me to Paris? “How about a hyperbaric session at the Vital Practice?” In a flash my hopes of a filthy martini in a sexy velvet nook are dashed.
Without realising it, Mr Love is bang on the money. Since the times of nibbling grapes together at the baths in ancient Rome, wellbeing has always had the potential for community enjoyment, from ladies taking the waters while gossiping about the night before in 18th-century Bath to mafiosi having clandestine meetings in steamy saunas, as depicted in the 1991 film Mobsters.
Until recently the tech element of wellness has been mostly a solo experience, folk scuttling off for clandestine appointments. But post-pandemic the wellness tech movement is having a moment, with treatments such as hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT) becoming as commonplace as the mani-pedi. Add to this the news that in the UK one nightclub is shutting every two days. So where do you go for a night out, a hot date or a lark about with pals? Biohacking clinics.
Globally leading the charge is Remedy Place, which claims to be the world’s “first social wellness club”. It was launched in LA in 2019 by Dr Jonathan Leary, and a second outpost opened in September in Flatiron, New York. The space is decorated in calming shades, from the concrete walls to the recovery stations beside the ice bath-filled suite and the velvet beds in the IV tunnel. It’s the perfect chic backdrop for the hordes of gorgeous young ’uns who would rather do a post-work group contrast suite (infrared sauna and nether-shrinking cold plunge) than hit happy hour at the local bar.
Back in London, friends meet for EMS sessions at Repose in Kensington. I trialled the HIIT class wearing a wireless body suit that delivers slightly ouchy electro-stimulation: mini electric shocks to the muscles. Knowing that my muscle engagement was at 98 per cent — instead of the 60 I’d get during a regular gym workout — stopped me from squealing. That, and the easy-on-the-eye “my other job’s an actor” personal trainer. After burning up to 500 calories in 20 minutes I followed my friend into the cryotherapy chamber for its anti-oxidative, anti-inflammatory recovery effects — although the biggest cryotherapy facility I’ve been to was a three-chamber number at Chenot Palace Gabala in Azerbaijan, which could easily fit me and an entire football team and their WAGs.
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At Re Place on Westbourne Grove in Notting Hill, friends meet for treatments including body-roller sessions for myofascial release, lymphatic drainage or muscle recovery, followed by a matcha coconut-milk latte in the upstairs café.
Back at the Vital Practice on Little Portland Street in Fitzrovia, Mr Love and I sit side by side in the hyperbaric oxygen therapy room, which is customised with a TV and lined with what looks like Chanel quilting. The fact that the close to 100 per cent oxygen in this pressured chamber is increasing our cellular and tissue oxygenation by up to 1,200 per cent, upregulating our genes, stem cells, immune cells, energy, metabolism, detoxification and repair mechanisms, all sounds pretty sexy. However, gazing at each other with tubes up our noses isn’t exactly hot.
I’m not sure how I’d feel if this was our first date. But the Vital Practice is the kind of place for which zoomers are eschewing nightclubs — a space where they can deepen human connection while enhancing their health.
