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MyspaceI’m lying on my back, atop a soft mattress, inside a bamboo-and-pine box that’s considerably roomier and certainly warmer (I presume) than a coffin. In front of my eyes is a hexagonal panel of slowly dimming, colored lights, and I’m surrounded by ethereal music, the vibrations of which — especially on the particularly bassy tones — emanate from below and gently rumble my rump. Of all the interesting alternative-health experiences I’ve stumbled into, from vitamin injections to underwater yoga, the hour that I spent slipping in and out of consciousness in Santa Barbara’s first and only “Life Vessel” might qualify as the kookiest. But it wasn’t just a weird way to nap, for my perception of time evaporated, and when the session was over, my body felt a bit spent, like I’d just endured a deep massage. The sensation of sound, it seemed, had done something, although I’m still not sure what.
“We think that vibrational medicine is the wave of the future,” explained Stephanie Badasci, who brought the Life Vessel to town with her business partner, Becky Witt, earlier this year. The pair were trained by mentors in Cottonwood, Arizona — where the federally registered device was invented in 1998 — and taught that the vessel’s vibrations help balance the autonomic nervous system while de-stressing and detoxifying the body. But it is not a healing device, they stress; rather it presents a tool kit for self-healing. “It gives your body an entire range of vibrations and frequencies,” explained Witt, “and your body picks the ones you need.”
Today, Life Vessel Santa Barbara is one of the few places in the world where you can try out this vibrational therapy, as well as detoxifying foot treatments, voice-powered fear-conquering technology, personal collage classes, and consultations using the “brain gym.” See lifevesselsantabarbara.com.
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Comments
This sounds like the kind of great technology and program that should be given a trillion dollars in stimulus funds from the Obama administration.
Brain gym?
A tool box for my body?
Didn't vibrating beds used to be available in cheap hotel rooms?
italiansurg (anonymous profile)
October 22, 2011 at 5:29 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Vibrational therapy is one of the newest and most exciting emerging fields and whenever a new technology begins to emerge there are always whose who will try to discredit it. If history can teach us anything it's that we should be open minded when it comes to new ideas and we still have a lot to learn about our understanding of how the human body heals itself.
This type of therapy represents the cutting edge and I for one am grateful that we now have the ability to use a system like this here in Santa Barbara.
healthyguru (anonymous profile)
October 22, 2011 at 9:02 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Chiropractors use such beds too, *it does* relax the muscles.
billclausen (anonymous profile)
October 23, 2011 at 3:55 p.m. (Suggest removal)
No, healthyguru, that is NOT what history teaches us. Rather, we've learned over the years that hucksters of every stripe will find new and inventive ways to separate the target and his/her money.
If this is the cutting edge, then you can, of course, give us some links to peer-reviewed studies that demonstrate the power of "vibrational therapy". Until you do so, this is a scam and, sadly, another in a long line of Indy articles that accept woo at face value.
SezMe (anonymous profile)
October 24, 2011 at 12:31 a.m. (Suggest removal)
So Matt, how is it that you know about coffins? Do you lie around in them?...not that there's anything wrong with that.
billclausen (anonymous profile)
October 24, 2011 at 9:12 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Coffins ARE fun--people are dying to get into them.
billclausen (anonymous profile)
October 25, 2011 at 3:13 p.m. (Suggest removal)