THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, December 15, 1995 TAG: 9512150498
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY EARL SWIFT, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: Medium: 68 lines
One by one, smartly attired executives strode purposefully from Norfolk's World Trade Center to a darkened motor home in the parking lot.
They emerged minutes later giddy and loose-limbed, free of stress, worry and the desire to return to work.
And full of praise for the Mobile Stress Relief Unit, a high-tech massage studio stuffed into a 34-foot, custom-built bus.
In its first visit to Hampton Roads Thursday, the Richmond-based vehicle relaxed and entertained a steady stream of lawyers, shippers and real estate agents, most whom traded $5 for seven minutes' respite from workaday crises.
``We've had 100 percent success today,'' said Andrea Henley, the motor home's owner, as a junior exec in suspenders and tassled loafers trembled to the touch of a massage chair a few feet away.
``We don't practice any medicine,'' she told a trio of arriving women. ``This is for pleasure, only.''
And how. Inside the $115,000 bus were three recliners fitted with vibrating pads and rollers that simulated an aggressive Japanese Shiatsu massage, along with a fourth chair that tilted, space capsule-style.
In the rear stood the ``Hydrosonic Table'' - a $15,000 vibrating waterbed. ``It will massage every single cell in your body,'' Henley said, ``through the bone.''
Kim West, a commercial real estate manager, verified that she had, in fact, felt her every cell massaged in a visit to the device.
``I thought, `Well, I'll relax for 15 minutes and think.' And actually, I couldn't think about anything,'' she said. ``I'm at work, and it's 2 o'clock, and I was thinking about what I have to do by the end of the day, and it was almost as if I was being sucked in. I couldn't fight it.
``That 15 minutes went fast.''
Henley bought the Mobile Stress Relief Unit to serve as a roving arm for Mind Your Body, a store she owns that specializes in vibrating furniture, soothing audio tapes and other mood-smoothers.
The former petroleum geologist took up the business of stress reduction after a traffic accident left her bedridden and suicidally depressed: ``I had killer muscle aches. I had killer headaches. I wanted to end it.''
Massage therapy, she said, helped save her. The bus is her way of proselytizing its merits, and in her travels around Richmond she's calmed a sea of stress. Companies rent the bus for ``attitude adjustment parties.'' One Richmond high school's PTA bought massages for the entire teaching staff.
And buildings like the World Trade Center invite the bus over and encourage their tenants to give it a try. Thursday's visit - the beginning of what Henley hopes will be at-least-monthly forays to Norfolk - saw office workers lined up outside, at times.
``I don't know whether I feel like going and taking a nap right now, or what,'' West said after her session on the Hydrosonic Table. ``That felt awesome.
``Usually I reduce stress just by throwing things. And that doesn't really do much.'' ILLUSTRATION: Photos by RICHARD L. DUNSTON, The Virginian-Pilot
Kisha Muhammad, front, and Robin Devine relax in recliners fitted
with vibrating pads and rollers that simulated an aggressive
Japanese Shiatsu massage, aboard the Mobile Stress Relief Unit.
The $115,000 bus, on its first visit to Hampton Roads, entertained a
steady stream of lawyers, shippers and real estate agents, most whom
traded $5 for seven minutes' respite. by CNB