Light, scent, sound guide a harried man to a happy place

The starkness of the room is disquieting at first.

“Please leave your shoes and keys, anything that might distract you, on the mat in the corner,” my attendant, RaNae Dunne, says.

The recliner I am on seems to float. My socks dangle in front of a smooth white wall as RaNae slides a lozenge into a conical object beside me.

“You’ll hear three chimes at the end of your session, then I’ll be in with a cold towel,” she says before leaving.

What happens next? The atmosphere seems ripe for anything from an IMAX screening to an electroshock treatment. I’m trying a new method of stress relief. But, as the lights mellow around the recliner and the cone coughs out a pleasing scent, I realize this is nothing like my old methods: drinking and whining.

SENSORY UNDERLOAD

This is Wellness Effect, an integrated, naturopathic approach to stress relief.

“We combine the use of color, light, sound and aroma to assist in relaxation and healing,” Renee Waldman says.

A naturopathic physician and the proprietor of the Cave Creek clinic, Waldman blends these elements with directed meditation to target a variety of maladies.

“We create a synergy that brings you into a para-sympathetic state,” she says. “That’s the state that promotes relaxation and healing.”

Wellness Effect clients choose from a menu of “energy cafe experiences,” each tailored toward slightly different ends. “Release” combines ancient vocals and scents of chamomile to aid the release of pent up emotions. “Meditate” uses woodland fragrances and melodies designed to steer consciousness back toward the body’s internal rhythms.

I choose “Stressless Me,” a guided meditation described as a multisensory “guided vacation.”

“That’s a popular one,” Waldman tells me. “We deal with a range of issues here — sleeplessness, restless leg (syndrome), pain management, ADD, auto-immune illnesses. All of them are expressions of stress.”

“Think back to a time when you were truly relaxed,” a voice tells me. Back in one of the “wave theaters,” my eyes are closed, but cascading yellows and oranges seep pleasantly through, anyhow — as does a smell I can only identify as “woodsy.” Mine is a directed meditation, where a recorded voice rises above the music to direct my thoughts.

I don’t analyze too much. But I’m instructed at the beginning to keep my tongue gently on the roof of my mouth to facilitate breathing and smell; and I notice this is difficult, because my jaw keeps dropping open onto my chest.

As the colors flow to greens and blues, a change of scent seems to imprint itself on the pleasant memory I’m directed toward. I wonder, briefly, how my hands have not fallen off my wrists and smacked the floor. Color and sound engage the mind but scent, it seems, is an emotional trump card.

“Aroma bypasses the higher consciousness,” Waldman explains. “It goes right to the emotions.”

BRAIN RUB!

The three chimes come too soon, or so it feels. I feel substantially more relaxed — simply slipping out of the recliner requires planning. It isn’t massage-style clarity, where back and neck muscles feel wrung out. It feels more like someone has massaged the inside of my cranium, loosening the tension that balls up at the base of my skull.

I receive a cold towel and a tiny spray bottle.

“That contains some of the fragrances we worked with here,” I am told. “If you want to recreate the experience.”

A 30-minute session, like mine, costs $50, with personalized and group programs available.

Waldman acknowledges that sensory therapies and guided meditation draw skeptics in our pharmaceutically based world: “People often come to us when they’re already tried everything else.”

The techniques may seem unorthodox, but Waldman says her results win out.

“You don’t have to know how the car works to drive it,” she says. “You just have to be open-minded enough to have an experience. When we were constructing this facility and testing out the lights, we had general contractors — who didn’t buy into it — asking questions: 'What does it mean when the green light does this?’ Often, a husband will come to pick his wife up from a session, try one, and come out raving.”

As for me, I’m a little too loose to rave right now. Can sound, light, odor and a little directed thought be that therapeutic? I’m not sure, but I’m keeping my little spray bottle. 

it’s a relaxing memory.

WELLNESS EFFECT

What: Naturopathic approach using light, sound and aromatherapy to treat stress relief

Where: 20624 N. Cave Creek Road, Suite 141, Phoenix

Cost: Single sessions begin at $50

Information: (602) 687-9477 or www.wellnesseffect.com