Dressed in a robe, socks and slippers, a headband covering my ears, hands ensconced in giant gloves, I stepped into the cryo chamber and closed the door behind me. Beyonce’s “Break My Soul” pumped through the speakers overhead, and teeny ice flakes whirled through the air. To make it through my one-minute cryotherapy session in this minus 140° chamber, I sure as hell sang along with Queen Bey.
The cryotherapy chamber
While it may sound like a spa experience at a luxury resort, I am actually right on Ventura Boulevard in Studio City at the newest of five Pause day spa location in Los Angeles.
The Valley is home to all kinds of themed day spas, including ones where you can heat out impurities, and ones where you can inhale salt in an effort to improve your respiratory health. The offerings at Pause cover a wide range of health and wellness themes—some of which are cutting-edge.
Instead of the traditional dry or wet sauna, for example, Pause offers saunas that use infrared light to heat the body. Most of these saunas are buddied up with cold plunge pools in private rooms.
Another offering is contrast therapy, which pairs an infrared sauna with a 45° ice bath ($75 for 30 minutes). Claimed health benefits include relief from chronic pain, calorie and fat burning, skin purification and an immunity boost. Contrast therapy rooms at Pause accommodate up to three people, so you can plan a solo visit in the name of self-care, a date night, or a healthful hang with friends.
A vitamin infusion treatment underway
The float chamber—a clamshell-shaped sensory deprivation tank filled with magnesium-fortified warm water—is another offering ($75 for 60 minutes). Ideally, users float nude in the water, allowing the body to absorb magnesium all over. The mineral is said to regulate blood pressure and blood sugar levels and support muscle and nerve function. As I floated, I drifted into a meditative state. Significantly larger than a bathtub, the float chamber is a relaxing experience that you can tailor. You can opt for a silent, fully dark experience (hence “sensory deprivation”) or float with a low blue light and calming music. Could you replicate this at home in a large tub with a pack of magnesium sulfate? Maybe. But as many of us parents know, doing it without interruption is a true luxury.
My cryotherapy experience (which I touched on at the beginning) was the opposite of meditative. New to the therapy, heart pumping and anxious, I stayed in the icebox-sized chamber for just one minute. Those with experience are allowed to stay in as long as three minutes and can advance to minus 175°. Ten minutes from start to finish, the experience is priced at $40. Cyrotherapy is a big thing right now among fitness enthusiasts who extol its benefits: burning calories, producing collagen, reducing inflammation and improving circulation. If you’re stacking your therapies, the cryo chamber is a good place to start—you can go from a true high back down to a more relaxed state.
IV vitamin drips, an LED light bed, and compression therapy are other options on Pause’s menu. For those interested in trying nearly all of them in one visit, the studio offers the Hero’s Journey package. It’s aptly named—after about four hours of hyperfocused self-care, you would feel like a hero, ready to take on any challenge.
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