Optimizing health and longevity with a thoughtful treatment regimen
By Lexi Marshall
COMPRESSION BOOTS AND INFRARED SAUNAS. Singing bowls and cold plunges. Across the South Denver suburbs, wellness studios are bringing these modalities together, and the people walking through their doors range from athletes chasing faster recovery to busy parents seeking a restorative pause in an infrared sauna.
The word “biohacking” still carries certain associations. A few years ago, it conjured a distinctly Silicon Valley brand of wellness—experimental, obsessive, and relentlessly focused on optimization. But talk to the people running wellness studios in Greenwood Village, Highlands Ranch, and Virginia Village, and a much more nuanced approach emerges.
“It’s really about being intentional with your health and finding ways to help your body function at its best,” says Deena Taylor, co-owner of Zivel Highlands Ranch. “It doesn’t have to mean extreme or complicated interventions.”
Zivel’s approach leans on infrared heat, red light, compression, and cryotherapy, but Taylor is quick to point out that none of it is intended to replace sleep, exercise, strength training, good nutrition, and stress management. Those fundamentals, she says, still have the strongest evidence behind them. The technology is there to support the basics, not replace them.
Up the road at Jalan Facial Spa in the Denver Tech Center, lead massage therapist Sara Bonnell has watched the same shift play out from a different angle. Saunas, infrared treatments, sound and vibrational therapy—they’ve all surged in the past few years, and increasingly clients want them layered together rather than a la carte. “Multiple massage and sauna combinations have been popping up all across Denver,” Bonnell says, pointing to the rise of vibroacoustic lounge chairs and massage tables as evidence of how firmly these therapies have entered the wellness mainstream. Part of that growth, she thinks, comes down to accessibility. People understand light therapy’s anti-inflammatory effects now in a way they didn’t a decade ago, and there’s a growing awareness of how sound and vibration can calm an overtaxed nervous system.
What ties these studios together isn’t any single technology. It’s a starting question: what does this particular person actually need? “We always start with the person, not the technology,” Taylor explains. “We ask what they’re hoping to accomplish, what their current routine looks like, and whether they have any medical conditions, medications, or other factors that could affect their experience.” Someone training for a race might be pointed toward compression or cryotherapy. Someone navigating a particularly stressful period might benefit instead from a dry float session or infrared sauna. Safety comes first, and sometimes that means a referral to a doctor before a treatment, or steering a client away from something entirely, rather than selling them on a service just because it’s on the menu.
Bonnell brings that same instinct to the massage table, especially with clients trying the Sound Bath & Heated Bamboo Massage treatment for the first time. Her advice: lean in, don’t brace. “I encourage all of my clients receiving therapeutic or deep tissue massage to shift their view during the session from ‘how much pain or pressure can I take’ to ‘how relaxed can I be,’” she says. There’s a real connection between the nervous system and connective tissue, and clients who can consciously relax during a session let a therapist work intothe muscle far more effectively than clients gritting their teeth through it.
Across town at Beyond Body Sculpting, owner Jackie Vizcaino takes a similar whole-body view with the studio’s Cleopatra Detox and Sculpt Ritual, a treatment that strings together full-spectrum infrared sauna, Brazilian lymphatic drainage massage, and red light facial sculpting into a single session. Vizcaino is careful to frame it as more than a beauty treatment. Many clients arrive carrying chronic stress, emotional trauma, or simply the physical wear of daily life, and while she’s clear that bodywork isn’t a trauma treatment, she says creating space for the nervous system to settle can matter just as much as anything happening on the surface of the skin.
Evidence plays a more prominent role in this new era of wellness, with practitioners drawing a clearer distinction between proven benefits and emerging research. Cryotherapy, Taylor says, has decent support for short-term recovery and easing the perception of soreness, though the bigger claims made about it haven’t caught up with the research yet. Infrared heat and regular sauna use show real promise for circulation, relaxation, and cardiovascular health, but she’s careful to note that correlation isn’t causation, and there’s still more to learn about how different infrared treatments stack up against traditional sauna exposure. Red light therapy has growing evidence behind it for skin health, wound healing, and recovery, though results swing depending on wavelength, dosage, treatment protocol, and the individual.
The instinct toward medically grounded, evidence-first wellness is showing up in bigger ways across Greenwood Village, too. Eden Health Club has built a single space around beauty and aesthetics, functional medicine, fitness, and recovery, and nearby, The Longevity Lab, founded by Dr. Jonathan Schoeff and his wife, Candace, was built specifically to treat patients starting at the source of a health issue rather than addressing symptoms in isolation.
Neither positions itself as a conventional spa. Both are built around a more clinical model, pairing recovery technology with medical oversight rather than offering it as a stand-alone amenity.
“These are active, health-conscious communities with people who are balancing demanding careers, families, fitness, and busy lifestyles,” Taylor says of Highlands Ranch and the surrounding suburbs. “They’re looking for convenient ways to prioritize their health without adding another complicated task to their schedules.”
Bonnell sees the industry heading in a similar direction, with light therapy and manual lymphatic drainage earning a permanent seat at the table as legitimate health maintenance rather than indulgence, and she wouldn’t be surprised if spa-style treatments eventually find their way into insurance coverage or employer wellness benefits.
The through-line across these studios isn’t any particular treatment or technology. It’s a philosophy: pair innovation with the fundamentals, rather than in place of them, and create an approach to wellness designed for the long term.
BEYOND BODY SCULPTING
5777 E. Evans Ave., Ste 5
Denver
303.525.4443
beyondbodysculpting.net
EDEN HEALTH CLUB
5990 S. University Blvd.
Greenwood Village
720.605.7678
edenhealthclubs.com
JALAN FACIAL SPA
8745 E. Orchard Rd., Ste. 519
Greenwood Village
720.762.5194
jalanspa.com
ZIVEL HIGHLANDS RANCH
9325 Dorchester St., Ste. F-121
Highlands Ranch
- 827.6311
zivel.com
