4 Ways to Elevate Your Health and Wellness Routine in 2025
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 […]
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
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
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 Jungle Resort
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 Jungle Resort. 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, Serayu Wellness 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 Serayu Wellness comes with complimentary drinks and bites, and guests can book services individually or in pairs.
For fitness-focused guests, The Kayon Jungle Resort’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. A Gym & Recreation center on site also offers a healthy escape, with state-of-the-art cardio equipment and free weights for in-house guests.
Of course, make sure you leave time to dine at one of the resort’s many restaurants and accommodations. The KePitu Restaurant hosts a menu that dances between international favorites, healthy choices, local delights, and signature specialties. The KePitu Bar and Lounge offers guests a range of refreshments, from fresh juices and gourmet coffee to tantalizing cocktails, boutique wines, icy cold beers, and top-shelf spirits. The Canyon Jetty Restaurant a unique jungle escape with intimate dining huts for guests to enjoy local and international dishes.
When it’s time to head to bed, The Kayon Jungle Resort has ample options to suit any kind of stay you’re seeking. Guests hoping to experience aquatic ambiance can opt for the Jungle Pool Villa, a contemporary Balinese-style escape built with local stone, bamboo, and woven rattan furniture. Roosting near a pool, as its name implies, the villa is surrounded by lush jungle. Want canyon views? Book The Kayon Jungle Suite, which comes with incredible vistas thanks to its seat above the treetops. And in the Valley Pool Villas, you’ll look out at gorgeous tropical jungle views. No matter which room you choose, you’ll be waking up in paradise.
Finding a gift that feels truly personal can be surprisingly difficult. In a sea of generic options — flowers, gift cards, candles, and the like — Xplosion Box offers something more lasting: a customized keepsake built around the photos, messages, and memories that matter most.
Founded by Southern California entrepreneur Jay Vijay, Xplosion Box LLC creates fully customized explosion gift boxes that arrive professionally designed, printed, assembled, and ready to gift. Each box opens layer by layer to reveal personal photos, heartfelt messages, pull-out albums, origami-style photo pockets, and hidden notes, turning a simple gift into an emotional reveal.
The brand was built for people who want to give something meaningful without spending hours printing photos, cutting paper, folding cardstock, or assembling a DIY project. Customers simply choose a box, upload their favorite photos, add personal messages, and the Xplosion Box team transforms those details into a polished keepsake that feels thoughtful, personal, and beautifully made.
Xplosion Box offers personalized gift boxes for birthdays, anniversaries, weddings, graduations, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Valentine’s Day, Christmas, proposals, bridesmaid gifts, long-distance relationships, and thoughtful “just because” moments.
Customers can choose from flexible customization options starting at $27. The Mini Surprise Box includes 10 photos, three message cards, and one hidden secret note, while the Mega Surprise Box offers a fuller keepsake experience with 40 photos, three message cards, and one hidden secret note.
What sets Xplosion Box apart is its high level of customization combined with convenience. Filled with personal photos, custom text, decorative details, and layered surprises, each box gives customers the freedom to create a gift that feels one-of-a-kind — without having to make it themselves.
At its core, Xplosion Box helps people turn favorite photos, stories, and words into something tangible: a keepsake that can be opened, revisited, and remembered long after the occasion has passed. asion has passed.
If you’re anything like us, it can be easy to get so caught up in taking care of everyone else, that your own needs get lost in the ether. But while this may be a cliché, that doesn’t make it any less true: You can’t give your best self to other people unless you’re taking care of yourself.
Sometimes, that looks like stopping in for your regular acupuncture or chiropractic appointment. Other days, it means giving your body the fresh, organic fuel it needs to truly feel and function at its best. And some other times still, it involves leaving your responsibilities behind for a weekend to pamper yourself at an incredible resort and spa.
Only you can decide what your truly need. We’re just here to help you find the best ways to get it.
Tommy Bahama Miramonte Resort & Spa
Island living meets desert luxury at the Tommy Bahama Miramonte Resort & Spa in Indian Wells. When you step onto the 11-acre property, you’ll be surrounded by sweeping view of the Santa Rosa Mountains with olive trees and fragrant citrus groves decorating the grounds. In other words, everything about this relaxed but refined resort is primed to help you let go of the stress from home and enjoy easy sun-soaked days and gorgeous starry nights.
The rooms blend calming, woven textures with Tommy Bahama’s signature tropical prints and feature private lanais, making it easy unwind the moment you walk in the door. If you book one of the four Villa Suites, you’ll be treated to exclusive Tommy Bahama furniture and unique personal touches to further that feeling of instant ease.
At the award-winning Spa Rosa, the expert team will help reset and recharge your body and mind using methods and rituals inspired by the desert. The 12,000-square-foot retreat includes outdoor soaking pools, eucalyptus steam rooms, and outdoor cabanas, as well as massages, facials, and body masks—all aimed at creating a day dedicated to you. We’re particularly partial to the Day Long Escape, an indulgent all-day affair of CDBs soaks, renewing scrubs, life changing massages, and transformative facials.
Following your treatment, continue the experience with a meal on the patio at Grapefruit Basil. We love the Hamachi Crudo, a light, citrus-forward dish featuring premium yellowtail, house-made ponzu, creamy avocado, and fresh seasonal garnishes.
Whether you’re strolling the gardens, relaxing beside its saltwater pools, or indulging in a restorative treatment, you’ll be able to escape in style and relax in luxury at the Tommy Bahama Miramonte Resort & Spa.
Healcove Chiropractic
There’s no shortage of ways to stay active in San Diego—but if you really want to enjoy everything the city has to offer, you’ve got to make sure you’re giving your body its tune-ups. Enter: Healcove Chiropractic. The board-certified chiropractors and wellness professionals at Healcove are experts at addressing that stage where you’re not injured, exactly, but you’re not at 100%, either. Maybe you’re feeling a bit tense or stressed out. Or it could be that you’re not quite moving the way you want to. Sometimes, it’s just that the accumulation of days, weeks, or even years of daily strain is starting to take a toll. No matter what stage you find yourself at, the Healcove Chiropractic team can provide integrated, preventative care centered on long-term, science-backed approaches that ensure you can always stay active and live the life you want to live pain-free.
This starts by providing truly individualized care. Every patient can expect a thorough 60-minute consultation session that includes a posture and movement screening. This allows the team to develop a completely personalized plan. That plan might include chiropractic care, acupuncture, or massage therapy, as well as functional fitness training, vibration and sound therapy, and Dynamic Neuromuscular Stabilization, a clinical rehabilitation method that retrains the body’s stabilization systems. Whatever the team recommends, you can be sure that it’s tailored to meeting your body’s needs today and the future.
There’s a reason that San Diego Magazine named Healcove the “Best Chiropractor in San Diego”—don’t wait until you’re struggling with an injury to find out why. Book an appointment today for holistic, integrated care that helps ground and heal your body before it reaches a crisis point.
Juice Holler
West Coast wellness culture meets the community feel of Southern Appalachia at Juice Holler. Juice Holler’s menu consists of made-to-order smoothies and smoothie bowls, as well as grab-and-go cold-pressed juices, wellness shots, salads, and more. It operates from the blissfully simple premise that fueling up with food and drink that’s guilt-free and good your body should be simple, accessible, and, above all else, delicious. And if you haven’t yet made it out to the Encinitas café, which opened just this year, let us be the first to tell you: Juice Holler delivers on each and every of these fronts.
We love the Supercharger smoothie, a mood-lifting and body-fueling option made with banana, almond butter, blue spirulina, maca, grass-fed whey protein, raw cacao nibs, medjool dates, and coconut milk. We’re also partial to the Thrive Alive smoothie bowl, where avocado, mango, sea moss, spirulina, mint, coconut milk, and agave are mixed and topped with coconut, chia seeds, strawberry, mango, and chocolate drizzle. The wellness shots include the Detoxifier, a cleansing blend of kale, cucumber, lemon and spirulina, plus a shot specially designed to fight inflammation (named, fittingly, Anti-Inflammation). Probiotic overnight oats, lemon turmeric bars, and strawberry shortcake chia pudding are other standouts on the grab-and-go menu.
Much of the vibe feels beachy North County chic—think green tile with orange and pink accents, grounded with greenery and natural wood—but Juice Holler founder Kelly Sergott, a longtime Encinitas local, has also enfused the space with her Kentucky roots. In Appalachia, a holler is small valley between hills and mountains, where nature reigns, community is king, and nourishment comes right from the land. At Juice Holler, Sergott has created a holler for the busy modern times, using local ingredients to create a spot for people to come together and enjoy fresh, fast, feel-good fuel for their day.
Everwell Acupuncture
We’ve all had that experience with a medical professional where we’ve felt rushed, ignored, or misunderstood—and ultimately, like we didn’t get the answers that we needed. But at Everwell, the holistic acupuncture practice located in Solana Beach, the care team wants to transform your understanding of what healthcare can look like.
Patients at Everwell experience care rooted in intentional listening and radical empathy—and trust us, those aren’t just corporate buzzwords. This place actually puts those ideas into practice. You will always be given the time you need to tell your story— initial in-take appointments are two hours long—and you can rest assured that your story will be believed. Every single question and concern will be addressed by a dedicated practitioner who wants to find the specific solutions that work best for you, and you’ll receive care that’s aimed at healing the body, mind, and spirit.
Everwell’s highly trained, doctorate-level practitioners blend evidence-based acupuncture with the practice of classical Chinese medicine. (If you’ve never tried acupuncture before or aren’t sure if the team will be a fit, we’d highly recommended Everwell’s complimentary 20-minute consultations.) Research shows that by stimulating specific points on the body, acupuncture activates a natural healing response in the body, helping to restore balance, regulate the nervous system, and improve overall wellbeing. This allows the practice to address an incredibly wide range of conditions from chronic pain and autoimmune disorders to digestive issues, from stress and burnout to headaches migraines, fertility and postpartum struggles, hormonal imbalances, sleep concerns and more.
At Everwell, you can expect to feel heard, trusted, respected, and cared for. This is a space that doesn’t want to be just another healthcare provider you visit; it wants to provide patients with dedicated partner who will be there for their entire health journey.
You’ve Tracked Your Macros, Your Sleep, Your Steps. What About Your Drinking?
The Unconscious Moderation app is helping health-conscious professionals take an honest look at their drinking, without pressure, and without quitting as the only option.
San Diego runs on optimization. Early mornings, clean eating, training logs, sleep scores. The people here take their health seriously and the results usually show. Most of them also have two drinks most nights, not because anything is wrong, but because the day was long and the glass is right there and it has always been right there.
That routine doesn’t get the same scrutiny as the rest of the stack. It doesn’t feel like something to examine. It feels like a reward.
Which is exactly what your brain has decided it is. When something reliably moves you from one state to another, your brain files it under things to repeat. Do it consistently enough and the cue stops requiring a decision. It’s 6pm, the laptop is closed, and some part of your brain has already placed the order.
Most habit-change tools work on the number. They count drinks, set weekly targets, send check-in texts. That’s useful for seeing what the pattern looks like. It doesn’t tell you where the pattern came from, or change it at that level.
Unconscious Moderation works underneath the habit. The app uses guided hypnotherapy sessions, structured journaling, and daily movement to address the subconscious associations that make reaching for a drink feel like the obvious next thing. The journaling isn’t a diary. It’s built to surface what your brain is actually reaching for, so you can meet that need directly rather than through a substitute.
The program runs 90 days. At day 30, you choose your own direction: cut back, drink more intentionally, or stop altogether. The app treats both as equally valid outcomes. The point isn’t to follow a rule you set on a Sunday. It’s to understand the pattern well enough that whichever path you choose, you’re choosing it clearly.
The people who tend to get the most out of it are not in crisis. They’re the ones who have tried tracking apps and found the count drifting back up regardless. They know exactly how much they drink and why. The awareness just hasn’t moved the habit. At some point, the work needs to happen somewhere the count sheet can’t reach.
San Diego’s wellness culture already knows that surface numbers tell only part of the story. What you eat matters, but so does why. How much you sleep matters, but so does the quality. The same logic applies here.
Chemotherapy and radiation have long been considered gold standards of cancer treatment, but they can cause severe side effects. A promising new approach called theranostics—a combination of “therapeutics” and “diagnostics”—could offer patients with certain types of metastatic cancers new hope. It’s a two-step process that uses a drug that binds to specific receptors on cancer cells. Advanced imaging detects this radioisotope, allowing doctors to then use a second radioisotope that binds to the cancer cells and destroys them. Click here to learn more about how specialists at Scripps Cancer Center are using theranostics.
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Daniel A. Kaplan is a founding partner of Panakos LLP with more than three decades of civil litigation experience in both state and federal courts. Mr. Kaplan pursues and defends legal claims on behalf of companies, entrepreneurs, and business owners in high-stakes disputes. He focuses on business disputes including breach of contract, unfair competition, trade secret theft, securities disputes, fraud/misrepresentations, and employment matters.
“The best advocacy combines preparation, perspective, and a client relationship built on trust and candor.” — Daniel A. Kaplan
His clients include real estate investors, private and public corporations, and individuals seeking sophisticated legal counsel. Known for practical judgment and strategic advocacy, he works closely with an experienced and diverse legal team to protect, enforce, and defend his clients’ interests.
555 W. Beech Street, Ste. 500, San Diego, California 92101 619-8000-LAW Panakos.law
At Naumann Law Firm, PC, William Naumann and his team have recovered hundreds of millions of dollars in damages litigating construction defects, insurance, and government claims. Mr. Naumann has spent his career fighting for people in their hardest moments, from winning $7 million for homeowners after landslide damage to advocating for victims of 9/11.
“We always believe in working as hard as we can to maximize the recovery for the client.” — William Naumann, Esq.
Combining a personalized approach with a results-driven strategy, he’s helped homeowners associations, property owners, and individuals win against the largest developers, builders, insurers, and municipalities. His commitment is to secure the best possible results efficiently, whether through settlement or at trial.
10890 Thornmint Road, Suite 200, San Diego, California 92127 858-792-7474 naumannlegal.com
