LEARNING TO RELAX

Float your cares away in Auriga Spa’s Flotation Therapy

Off to one corner of Capella Shanghai is Auriga Spa, which offers a menu of luxurious treatments in locally inspired holistic healing methods – from ancient practices of Traditional Chinese Wellness and the latest spa technologies and treatments. Take your pick from herbal baths, a vitality pool, a sauna, a steam room, Hypoxi weight-loss machines, an impressive salt-wall lounge and a flotation tank, an hour in which promises to relax mind, body and spirit to send you off to a good night’s sleep. What does it feel like inside the tank? Strangely surreal and relaxing. The bather floats inside in what is essentially salt water surrounded by coloured lights and chill-out music, which are all designed to put the mind in a trance-like state, almost. The result? You come out of it feeling as if you’ve travelled to some dimension. Is it relaxing? Type A personalities might have a hard time letting go and just floating away, but once you surrender, it’s bliss.