Feel your best this year with local and international businesses offering sauna sessions, innovative workouts, thoughtful aesthetic services, and tropical escapes
2025 is going to be your year—especially if you stick to that resolution to move your body and invest in self-care. Luckily, San Diego County and the wider world are flush with businesses that make it easy to meet your goals. Seeking holistic solutions to aches and pains? Drop by Pure Infrared Sauna Studio. Filled your 2025 vision board with photos of flawless skin? Cara Studios can make that dream a reality. Have “work out more” on your list this year, but aren’t sure how you’ll find the time? Coastal Fit can tone you up with a once-weekly, 20-minute session. And if you want to combine wellness and wanderlust, The Kayon Resort Ubud is a Balinese escape for anyone who prefers a vacation spot that supports their fitness goals instead of throwing them off. Here’s how to upgrade your health and beauty routine this year.
Sweat It Out with Pure Infrared Sauna Studio
Sweat and reset at Pure Infrared Sauna Studio’s downtown San Diego and Solana Beach locations. This studio combines the latest in innovative wellness recovery modalities and state-of-the-art equipment in a serene atmosphere to help you reset both your body and your mind.
Owner Matt Stewart is a certified health coach and nutritionist and an athlete who has tried it all—from pain killers and cortisone to CBD and stem cells—to treat and manage injuries and pain and maintain his active lifestyle. He founded Pure to give others access to the holistic tools he’s found most effective—especially infrared saunas.
In contrast to traditional steam saunas, infrared technology uses full-spectrum light to generate heat within the body in a cooler—and more comfortable—environment. It’s designed to induce a deep sweat that soothes achy muscles and joints (making it ideal for athletes or anyone with chronic discomfort), improves circulation, reduces inflammation, boosts your immune system, and helps you flush out environmental pollutants and unwind from daily anxieties. Studies have shown that regular sauna use can lower elevated blood pressure, improve asthma symptoms, and reduce pain associated with conditions like arthritis and fibromyalgia.
Each private sauna suite is meticulously designed for comfort, equipped with amenities like calming music and TVs for meditation or entertainment, as well as attentive staff members well-versed in guiding first-timers. Additionally, every sauna sesh comes with medical-grade chromotherapy, which employs colored light to relief stress, boost energy, smooth skin, drive cell renewal, support a more youthful visage, and even whiten teeth.
And that’s not the only way to lighten up at Pure. Clients can book a 10-minute session in a powerful and safe 360-degree red-light bed for a health and beauty double-whammy—the therapy can strengthen cell health and improve skin tone and texture, reducing the appearance of wrinkles and promoting a radiant glow.
If you’re looking to enhance your wellness routine even further, Pure offers more holistic recovery tools in one comfortable studio. Admittedly, not all are as cozy as the saunas—the studio’s cold plunge pools maintain a bracing 50-degree temperature, but immersing yourself in frigid H2O is worth it for benefits like reduced inflammation; lowered levels of cortisol, the stress hormone; and a mood-boosting rush of endorphins. Clients can book contrast therapy sessions to take advantage of both the sauna and cold plunge amenities and maximize the results of each.
Other available modalities include compression boots (ideal for runners and other athletes working to improve their circulation and relieve soreness), a pulsed electromagnetic frequency mat (designed to help with pain and inflammation), and salt therapy with a halotherapy generator that produces salt particles to turn the studio space into the equivalent of a healing salt cave. It’s all at Pure, so you can leave pain, sluggishness, and stress in 2024.
Pure Infrared Studios:
2665 5th Avenue Suite 103
San Diego, CA 92103
437 S. Hwy 101 Suite 107
Solana Beach, CA 90275
pureinfraredsaunastudio.com
Tone Up with Coastal Fit
Let’s say your goal for 2025 is to get stronger and leaner. You could hire a trainer, scour the internet for workout plans, bump sweaty shoulders in crowded fitness classes, take up jogging, and dedicate hours a day to bicep curls and sumo squats in the gym. Or you could spend 20 minutes a week at Coastal Fit in Encinitas, San Diego County’s largest studio specializing in Whole Body Electro Muscle Stimulation (WB-EMS).
Originating from long-used physical therapy practices, EMS is an FDA-approved technology aimed at delivering maximum results in minimal time. At every EMS session, you’ll don a specialized suit that lines all of your major muscle groups with electrodes. Once the suit gets hooked up to an EMS machine, you’ll feel tiny pulses throughout your body—that’s those electrodes causing 98 percent of your muscle fibers to contract 85 times per second (for context, you’re looking at about one to two contractions in a single muscle group for every second you spend doing a traditional gym workout).
While the machine does its thing, a Certified EMS Trainer will guide you through a 20-minute workout consisting of low-impact functional movements, including lunges, squats, and light-weight exercises suitable for people of all ages and fitness levels. After a cool-down stretch, you’re done—really! Thanks to all those muscle contractions, the session is equivalent to two-and-a-half hours of conventional strength training (in less time than it takes to cook a Rachael Ray recipe).
Coastal Fit combines this innovative technology with ultra-personalized coaching. The studio’s trainers will spend time during your first visit learning about your health history and current fitness capabilities and goals to create the perfect workout plan for you. They’ll use that info to calibrate the EMS machine to your specific needs, so you can exercise knowing an expert has your back.
After only a few weeks, you’ll start to feel stronger. By the end of your first month, you may begin to see changes in your body, including reduced fat and toned muscles (plus, that newfound muscle mass may speed up your metabolic rate and help you burn more calories all day long). Because EMS contracts almost 100 percent of your muscles at once, you may notice more symmetry. And EMS’s low-impact methods will limit the strain and pain that may come with traditional training, and the contractions will boost your circulation, improving your immune system and reducing muscle fatigue and tension.
You’ll get to achieve all these results in Coastal Fit’s peaceful North County studio equipped with handy locker rooms and a roomy stretching space, under the guidance of dedicated coaches, so you can consider your New Year’s resolution as good as met.
Coastal Fit EMS Studio
613 Westlake Street, Suite 126
Encinitas, CA 92024
coastalfit.com
Level Up Your Beauty Routine with Cara Studios
Want to step fresh-faced into the new year? Head to Cara Studios. Founded by Cara Paymaster, an esthetician and brow artist with nearly two decades of experience, the La Jolla–based studio focuses on safe and effective skincare for all—including those who are often underrepresented in the beauty industry or have a difficult time finding providers with expertise in their needs.
In addition to certifications to treat acne-prone and aging skin, Paymaster has training in scar revision and cancer-safe oncology skincare. She worked with JoElle Lee—known for her role as former first lady Michelle Obama’s esthetician—to learn how to provide services for people of all ethnic backgrounds. Want buccal or myofacial release massage? Paymaster’s got you. Looking for a hands-on, holistic alternative to Botox and fillers or a surgical face lift? She’s trained in Yakov Gershkovich’s popular massage technique.
So, no matter your skin type or concern, you can keep that commitment to regular self-care at Cara Studios. Newbies can start by booking The Facial, a 75-minute treatment that includes cleansing, exfoliation, extractions, and hydration, plus relaxing massages for your face, hands, arms, feet, and scalp. From there, you can work with Cara Studios’ team to determine which services best suit your needs and skin goals, whether that’s a sculpting massage, smoothing hydrodermabrasion, a microcurrent treatment to boost the efficacy of serums and other products, or dermaplaning to tackle acne scars.
If you’re ready to take your facial care routine to the next level, Cara Studios offers a number of acid peels—from the zero-downtime CoolPeel to the powerful BioRePeel—to even out your skin tone and texture, slough off any signs of aging (including fine lines), and brighten your complexion. And skincare doesn’t stop at the neck at Cara Studios. Clients can schedule a clear skin back treatment intended to help bid bacne adieu.
Once your skin is aglow, ensure your brows are as beautiful as your complexion with the studio’s brow waxing, shaping, and tinting services. Or book a brow lamination for a gelled-down look that lasts up to two months. The experienced team at Cara Studios tints lashes and performs lip and chin waxes, too.
With even more treatments available at Cara Studios—including tension-relieving reflexology and a red and blue light therapy lounge with activities designed to help you destress and get in touch with yourself while pampering your skin—it’s easy to find your bliss and give your complexion everything it needs to thrive in 2025.
Cara Studios
909 Prospect St., Ste 100E
La Jolla, CA 92037
carapaymaster.com
Unwind at The Kayon Resort Ubud
The best way to kickstart a new wellness routine? A full reset. To get centered for a beautiful beginning to 2025, book a stay at The Kayon Resort Ubud. Nestled in the lush rainforests on the island of Bali and perched atop sprawling hills, the resort embodies the art of wellness, offering a gorgeous setting, luxurious rooms, an unmissable spa, a spectacular pool, and a suite of yoga classes to help you slow down and unwind.
To begin your stay on a relaxing note, the Serayu Spa At The Kayon Resort has a range of services geared toward nurturing your body and soothing any aches and pains. Choose from restorative body, foot, and head massages; nourishing scrubs, baths, and body wraps; and facials, manicures, pedicures, and hair treatments. Time at the Serayu Spa comes with complimentary drinks and bites, and guests can book services individually or in pairs.
For fitness-focused guests, The Kayon Resort Ubud’s yoga facility provides a diverse lineup of classes, with experienced Balinese yoga instructors teaching strengthening poses and postures, breathwork, and meditation to people of all ages, levels, and abilities. The daily morning yoga lesson at the Yoga Pavilion offers guests a chance to practice at sunrise, facing the lush forest and pool below, with the soft rush of the river as the soundtrack to your stretch. Yoga classes and other fun cultural activities—including Balinese dance classes; cooking lessons; and the chance to experience a Balinese offering ceremony, wear traditional Balinese clothing, or learn how to play the rindik, a set of Balinese instruments similar to xylophones of various sizes—are all complimentary for guests, though you can request a private yoga lesson for a fee to dig deeper into your practice.
Of course, make sure you leave time to recoup by The Kayon Resort Ubud’s spectacular pool. Perched steps away from the resort’s restaurant, above rice fields and the jungle valley, the sparkling, fish-shaped swimming pool offers ample space to swim, lounge, and relax with greenery all around.
When it’s time to head to bed, The Kayon Resort Ubud has ample options to suit any kind of stay you’re seeking. Guests hoping to experience aquatic ambiance can opt for the River Edge Pool Villa, a contemporary Balinese-style escape built with local stone, bamboo, and woven rattan furniture. Roosting near the river and pool, as its name implies, the villa is surrounded by waterfalls and ravines. Want canyon views? Book the The Kayon River Suite, which comes with incredible vistas thanks to its seat on the cliff overlooking the river. And in the Valley Deluxe Room, you’ll look out at gorgeous tropical jungle views. No matter which room you choose, you’ll be waking up in paradise.
Book now: thekayonresort.com
