UrbanUpdate

I love everything about my life, except for the fact that my habits are slowly killing me, gradually and effectively, in the form of micro-pains that pepper otherwise spotless and sunny days. Is it my reliance on gluten? Is it the pollution in the city where I live? Is it the pervasive theory that the American diet’s reliance on preservatives, GMOs, sugar, and hormones are slowly eating their way out of our stomachs, like alien tapeworm babies, destroying our insides in the process? I don’t know much, man, except for one thing: I need to detoxify my body. Immediately!

Emerging as both the most popular and most terrifying wellness trend of the last decade, detoxification practices are founded on a mistrust of our body’s waste removal systems and a belief that contemporary factors (i.e. mutated ingredients in our food, a suppressive ozone) are leaving our bodies imbalanced. Alternative medicine has long advocated manual removal of toxic matter from your body (enema, anyone?), but the practice has now seeped upward into tony spa treatments and deluxe hotel packages. It is not enough to relax anymore. You have to be born again.

The measured effects of detox treatments are dubious. (As one doctor once told me: “You know what’s really good at detoxifying your liver? Your liver.”) The term “toxin” is applied to almost anything that is not sold at Whole Foods. And what, really, are toxins, after all? It's unclear—beyond the instinct we all have to get them out of our bodies. That said, even if a detox doesn't actually amount to a be-all end-all cleansing of your system, these treatments are still supremely relaxing. They coax your body into a higher state of being with infrared heat and Netflix. If for nothing else, they can also be counted on for very, very temporary weight loss. You just have to have a little extra cash on hand. OK, lot's of cash. With all that in mind, let’s get clean:

Sweat It Out

Unlike most everything else in the wellness economy, the benefits of sweating are pretty well-documented. Especially when it comes to endorphin release and skin-improvement. Shape House takes something you can do for free at home and turns it into something you can do for $70 dollars while you watch TV and people dote on you. Until recently, the best place to pay to sweat was only in Los Angeles—Shape House recently opened in New York. I know because I live there now.

Sure, you can sweat at saunas and spas for cheap, but Shape House delivers on its promise of a luxury experience by accompanying your sweat with gratis entertainment and all of the high-PH water you can drink, to then subsequently expel onto the clothes they give you. After donning your cotton sweatsuit separates, you are tucked into an infrared blanket and given access to Roku, basically. A 55-minute session gives you the perfect amount of time to take in two episodes of 30 Rock, plus a few extra minutes for quiet reflection. When you’re done, you feel a few pounds lighter. Literally! You have shed water weight in the process.

Enjoy a tea or some complementary orange slices, but do not shower immediately, as your body will take the rest of the day to expel those toxins. (A delight for you, now a cleaner person, and a horror for those around you as you thrust your full-body BO upon them.) Pity them, for they are lesser.

Reionize Youself!

This is perhaps my favorite because it is truly the craziest. Ildi Pekar, a facial treatment provider in midtown, recently introduced a new boutique treatment, called Alkaline Therapy. It involves taking the ions that surround your body, and flipping the switch on them, so they make you healthier, or something.

But really, it looks like this: You lay horizontally in your underwear in a beautifully furnished room with optic white details. Your neck and head are encased in a plastic globe, and the rest of you is wearing a white trash bag. You look something like an astronaut who is also wearing a white trash bag. An enormous machine beside you whirs, and you feel nothing—it’s likely you fall asleep. The whole thing costs $350.

It’s called Alkaline Therapy because it seeks to alkalize the body—that is, counteract acid you might have, which comes from eating red meat and fried foods, drinking alcohol, and which accounts for acid reflux. An hour inside of Pekar’s body bag is akin to freebasing celery juice for a couple of days, which is why it’s crazy popular. Pekar does sessions herself. (She is also Miranda Kerr’s facialist—I wonder if Miranda does it, too?) According to Pekar, we are surrounded by positive ions, which are deposited on and around our body by iPhones and hair dryers and microwaves and the like. The machine neutralizes these positive ions with negative alkaline ions, which are found in, I wish I was joking, sunlight and waterfalls. Boom: GERD is gone. Skin is cleared. You can breathe a little better on account of more oxygen.

As somebody with terrible acid reflux, I was hoping this would be a cure-all. I felt great for the day and slept great for a few days, but ultimately, toxins took back over. Pekar advises her clientele to return for weekly reionizations. Does anybody have seven million dollars I can borrow? If so, I would love to return.

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