Simple Steps to making your home a Sanctuary

We can’t always escape the day-to-day hubbub by driving to a log cabin in the Québec woods or flying to an isolated beach on the Riviera Maya.

But with a few changes you can create a private sanctuary in your home, even if you live in midtown Manhattan, a sky-high condo in Toronto or a bustling soccer-Mom suburb.

How?

We asked some of our Willow Stream Spa experts for their own tips and here’s what they did to create their private sanctuaries.

Caroline determined that since her family spends about a third of their lives in bed, why not make their sleeping environments perfectly comfortable.

• She started with new mattresses because the old ones were contributing to neck pain, backaches and sleeplessness.
• Caroline changed their sheets and pillowcases to better material based on breathability and thread count; the higher the count, the better the quality. Fabric? Silk sounded sexy but high quality cotton and linen (flax) are better.
• New duvets gave their beds a luxurious, cozy feeling. Caroline advises that in selecting a duvet it’s important to consider the temperature of the bedroom, the fill, weight, construction of the duvet… and color. Red is not restful; blues and greens are.

Tony from Scottsdale was inspired by Willow Stream’s secret fluffy test (a touch test we do at Willow Stream to ensure everything that touches our spa guest is soft, fluffy and in pristine condition). So Tony has made sure everything in his home is soft – robes, towels, pajamas, sheets, etc. Add a cup of tea and voilà!, you’ve created a sanctuary in your own home.

In order to make her home a sleep sanctuary, Alice from Bermuda closely followed the latest spa trends regarding getting better sleep. Alice learned that to improve the quality of sleep, try a velvet eye mask to block out all light; lower lights early in the evening to trigger melatonin in the body; avoid email, phone and work after 7:00 p.m. and take warm baths. (Alice loves Willow Stream Balance bath and body oil for its natural sedative effects.) Blackout shades and drapery clips will give you total darkness and quiet, especially if you eliminate anything that sheds light in a bedroom, an LED clock, for example. It also helps to avoid stimulants such as caffeine and stressful conversation before bedtime.

Joan from Banff made her bathroom a sanctuary with a dimmer switch on the lights, soft music, candles, aromatherapy, a great bath tub and shower, and a towel warmer for your secret fluffy-test towels and robes. Fabulous.

Making your home into a sanctuary is never going to replace the experience of Willow Stream Spa treatments but it will help you to plant the spa lifestyle firmly in the most important place in the world: right where you live. And that will help you find your energy.