Wellness centre celebrates first anniversary

By Stephen Dafoe

Morinville – While many local organizations and groups gather at the Parrish Hall Saturday for the Active Living Fair, showing the roll they play in the health and vibrancy of the community, one local business will be opening its doors to celebrate its first year of helping with the health and wellbeing of individuals within the community.

Entheos Wellness Center on 100 Avenue is holding its one year anniversary Sept. 11, an opportunity to thank its existing clients and to introduce others to what the business has to offer.

Administrator Dianne Calverley said the name of the business came from a friend who had heard the word Entheos referred to on a Christian station.

“She checked into it and we agreed that the word Entheos was perfect for our business,” Calverley said. “It came from the Greek word that means God within.”

With the underlying concept of having a homey atmosphere of peace and calm where people can come in to relax and to leave feeling better, Calverley said she felt Entheos was the perfect name for the business.

“They feel comfortable and at home here and we really found that that was the perfect name for here,” she said. “We really felt that His presence was here. I believe most people have come in here that feel very relaxed when they come in. They leave feeling great.”

But just what the clients do between walking in and out the Entheos’ doors depends on what their needs are. The wellness centre offers a wide range of services, including far infra red sauna, infra red body wrap, ion foot detoxification, eyelash and eyebrow tinting, facials, body scrubs, as well as pedicures and manicures.

Whatever the service is being offered, Entheos tries to be as natural as possible when it comes to the tools of the trade.

“We use natural products,” Calverley said. “We try to strive to use as much natural as we can possibly get. Of course, we don’t use the chemicals and the gel nails and things like that here.”

Although the company has a small staff that specialize in different things, Calverley’s own specialty is detoxing and Entheos has several different detoxing areas, including infra red wraps. Calverley said the process uses silicon pads that are wrapped around the body in different areas for approximately one hour at a time. The pads radiate infra red heat into the body, heating the body from the inside out, pushing toxins to the surface of the body through perspiration.

“It helps to draw toxins out of the body,” she said. “And you feel good when you’re finished. It changes how you feel.”

But in addition to helping remove toxins, Calverley said the infra red wrap can remove inches instantly. Because of this characteristic, Calverley said Entheos sees a lot of clients who are looking to shed some inches for weddings or graduations.

Although infra red wraps can push water to the body’s surface, Calverley pushes getting water into the body, but not just any water will do.

“We really push drinking the proper water,” she said. “There are a lot of waters out there that are very acidic and we’re drinking them just because they’re advertised or they’re on sale. We don’t realize what type of water they are. So people who are drinking bottled water really should be drinking natural spring waters because they’re a neutral. They’re not acidic. Most of our tap water is neutral as well.”

But Entheos does offer water for its clients. The company uses Athena IonWays alkaline water, which goes through one filtering system to remove the impurities and a second that changes the molecular structure in the water.

“It makes it a larger molecule,” Calverley said, noting that the process allows the organs to better absorb the water. “This actually helps the body to hydrate because most of us are walking around dehydrated and don’t even realize it.”

Calverley said many people count drinking tea or coffee as drinking water, but the Entheos administrator said both are diuretics that take fluids out of the body.

“You want to replenish the body with something that’s going to stay in there and that’s good for the body,” she said, noting that a lot of water retention is caused by not drinking enough water. “The body has a signal that says hang on to this water because I don’t know when I’m getting any more. And so we start to store it in our ankles or hands or feet.”

Calverley emphasizes that drinking proper water is probably the most important thing people can do for their general wellness. But hand in hand with drinking the right water is drinking the right amount of water. Calverley recommends that the average adult should be drinking between 10 and 12 glasses of water daily.

Drinking the proper type of water is so important to the staff at Entheos Wellness Center that Calverley allows their clients to fill their glass bottles with the alkaline water. All that is asked of the client is a donation to help pay the cost of replacing the filters.

“It’s a healthier water for them, especially if they’re dealing with the sniffles and the flu in the winter,” Calverley said. “It’s very good because the body gets a chance to absorb the fluids they’re putting in.”

Visitors to Entheos’ anniversary celebration Sept. 11 will have the opportunity to sample their alkaline water as well as the many other services offered by the wellness centre.

The event runs from 10 a.m. until 2 p.m.