FOR:IL BORRO
Località Borro 1
52024 San Giustino Valdarno (AR)
Italy
+39 055.977053
www.ilborro.com
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IL BORRO OFFERS REVOLUTIONARY SPA TREATMENTS
UTILIZING INGREDIENTS GROWN ON-SITE
La Corte Spa offers Tuscan pampering with unusual treatments,
giving guests an experience they will never forget
La Corte Spa Wellness & Beautyprovides a sanctuary of calm and rejuvenation, far from the hustle and bustle of Florence, only miles away. Offering exclusive treatments devoted to the well-being of its guests, La Corte offers an array of soothing treatments that provide visible and surprising results. The treatments for the face and body utilize natural products of extremely high quality, with ingredients grown right on-site at the estate, such as grape extracts and olive oil.
A variety of holistic treatments found at the spa are used to improve the appearance of the body and relax the mind. Said offerings include smoothing exfoliants for dry and sensitive skin; dermocosmetics or “Mineral Suspensions” using bioactive volcanic minerals, and thalassotherapy, a body treatment using “fucus” and “laminaria” (types of seaweed) that are directed at stimulating cellular metabolism, resulting in a slimming, anti-cellulite action.
Setting La Corte apart from other luxury spas are the interesting treatments available using natural and organic products, found right on the property. OlivOil (olive oil treatments), a genuine beauty experience that quenches thirsty, dry skin, thanks to the natural oil gathered from around the estate. Vinotherapy, uses substances found in grapes and grape seeds that in a synergic approach, play an important role in bodily care and the treatment of skin blemishes, allowing for an invigorating skin treatment. The combination of western and eastern treatments guarantees quality and a superior sensorial experience.
Guests can choose from an array of massage techniques, including; Swedish, Californian or Esalen Massage, aesthetic shaping massage, physiotherapeutic massage, and a 7th chakra massage. Il Borro also has beauty amenities such as hair care, manicures and pedicures available to the guests.
For those looking for a vacation focusing on wellness, Il Borro offers a variety of packages that can be booked by calling the estate directly.
·Wellness Holidays—Two or four day programs focusing on beauty and fitness. The packages include the chosen spa itinerary, accommodation and lunches. The different packages to choose from include the Spa & Detox, which is a detoxifying program, complete with a personal trainer, the Spa & Slimming package, which comes complete with a nutritionist, and the Spa & Anti-Age package, which focuses on anti-aging using antioxidants. Rates for this package start at $1,190.
·The Last Minute—Smart Bookings are packages including accommodation, like many of the packages above.All the offers with accommodation are intended for a minimum of two people. These packages include; Il Borro Beauty & Wellness, two or four days focusing on beauty and wellness, the Il Borro Beauty & Relaxation for Two, a program for couples, Ayurveda (holistic wellness), an intensive balance program, and the La Corte Quick Wellness, a one night special offer for weekends, including accommodations and unlimited access to the spa. Rates for this package start at $181.
About Il BorroLocated in the Tuscan countryside, less than 40 miles southeast of Florence, is one of Italy’s most stunning travel properties, featuring 30 ultra-luxurious accommodations including villas and suites, a world class vineyard, legendary culinary program, renowned spa, and activities sure to please even the most discerning jetsetter. Purchased in 1993 from the Ferragamo family, the family-owned estate underwent a large renovation process, mixing old-world Tuscan elegance with modern amenities for what is now the present day property. To make a reservation please call 011.39.055.977053 or visit www.ilborro.com.
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Keep the state off my plate
Healthy choices need to be made by individuals, not governments.
Julie Gunlock is director of the Women for Food Freedom project at the Independent Women's Forum.
We have entered the eating season, a time when fresh-baked goods appear on counters at work and families and friends get together to raise a glass and enjoy good food and good company. But this year, our indulgence is likely to be more fraught, as the government continues its intrusion into what we choose to eat and drink.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg stands out for his attempts to control what New Yorkers consume. He has banned the sale of certain large sugary drinks, required fast-food restaurants to post calorie information and restricted the use of trans fats by the city's 24,000 food establishments. But he is far from alone.
North Carolina lawmakers recently reversed a ban on restaurants serving rare hamburgers, but they are still required to warn you about the potential for food poisoning if you dare order your burger rare. Children in San Francisco must cross the Bay Bridge to Oakland if they want a free toy with their chicken nuggets thanks to the Board of Supervisors' ban on free toys in fast-food children's meals. Several states tightly control where Americans can purchase liquor, and only 10 states allow the sale of raw milk for human consumption in retail stores.
In addition to onerous regulations and outright bans, states use tax policy to coerce Americans into eating healthier foods. The notion of a "sin tax" has moved beyond cigarettes and alcohol, with Arkansas, Virginia, West Virginia and Tennessee levying special taxes on soda. Several cities across the country are now considering similar efforts.
The federal government is also studying ways to control Americans' food choices. During President Obama's first term, the Food and Drug Administration explored regulations on food advertisements as well as limits on certain ingredients, such as salt and sugar, in packaged food and restaurant meals. The FDA is currently considering even more detailed labeling requirements for food packaging.
Officials justify such efforts as necessary to promote public health, as if obesity is a regulatory failure, not a personal health condition. Common sense suggests otherwise. After all, in New York, people can still consume an extra-large pizza, even if their beverage order is limited to 15 ounces. Even Bloomberg acknowledged his drink ban's futility when he said that customers "can always buy two sodas." New Yorkers can also select beverages not covered by the ban — like high-fat milk-based beverages or alcohol. I'm all for healthy choices, but they need to be made by individuals, not governments.
Research confirms these government efforts are generally ineffective. A 2009 study on New Yorkers who ate fast food found that only half even noticed the government-required calorie information displayed on menu boards. Of those, only 28% said the information influenced their ordering, and researchers found that the customers who noticed the calorie information didn't order food with fewer calories than those who were oblivious. And those four states with soda-specific sin taxes? They rank among the most obese states in the nation. So much for the government's war on obesity.
Another problem with government meddling is that it can backfire. For instance, the American Heart Assn. warned that trans-fat bans can lead restaurants to replace trans fats with shortening that is high in saturated fat, which, while better than trans fats in some respects, is hardly health food. Researchers at Cornell University observed that while soda taxes succeeded in encouraging people to temporarily reduce their soda consumption, beer sales increased.
Late-night comedians have found fodder in Bloomberg's nanny-state antics, but these initiatives are no laughing matter for the food industry. When the trans-fat ban was passed in New York, some ethnic restaurants and small bakeries were hard hit. The owner of one New York bakery told the New York Times that he had estimated that his costs had gone up by about 20% when he had to eliminate trans fats from his baked goods.
These establishments lose not only money but time: Under the trans-fat ban, restaurants are required to submit ingredient details for each recipe to ensure each product's trans-fat content doesn't exceed the new limits. It isn't hard to imagine how business owners might use this extra time and money if they weren't busy satisfying Bloomberg's regulatory predilections. And is it a good use of city resources to add an additional layer of monitoring?
Americans don't need higher food prices and more government workers enforcing useless regulations. Yet there's a larger issue at stake. These initiatives are symptoms of a government that knows no bounds. Americans must ask themselves: Do we really want government bureaucrats in charge of how much soda we can drink and what amount of salt can go into a can of soup? Is this really fitting for a country of free citizens with a limited government?
visit www.iwf.org
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I don't want to open the vast discussion of stress that now exists, except to make two limited points. 1. Stress isn't good for you. 2. The vast majority of people do not deal with their stress effectively. Coming to grips with these two things is important for anyone who wants to create a conscious lifestyle. To be aware is to be open, alert, ready to meet unknown challenges, and capable of fresh responses. When you are under stress, these qualities are compromised. Raise the stress high enough and they are reversed. The mind closes down as an act of self-defense. In that state it is very difficult to be alert and open.
But stress is bad for you in far more basic ways. The hormones that are released in the body's stress response, such as cortisol and adrenaline, are meant to be temporary. Their effect is to galvanize the fight-or-flight response, which is triggered in a primitive area of the brain, because fight-or-flight is an inheritance from our pre-human past. In the stress response, a privileged pathway is opened for dealing with emergencies, while at the same time the brain's higher responses are temporarily suppressed.
No one can healthily sustain the heightened alertness, quick burst of energy, rapid heart rate, elevated blood pressure, and other marks of the fight-or-flight response. Physically, the hormone rush must come to an end, leading to the opposite state - you become drowsy, lose energy, and have a hard time remaining alert and focused. So-called adrenaline junkies deliberately induce an aroused state because they enjoy being highly aroused, and they presumably value the courage, euphoria, and killer instinct that the stress response brings.
What they overlook is the down side. They may also be unaware of the physical damage done to various parts of the body, since various processes (e.g., growth, digestion, oxygenation of muscles) are temporarily shut down during fight-or-flight, which must be considered an abnormal, unbalanced state - no one would deliberately stay there. As stress experts have asserted for decades, the low-level stress of modern life fools the body into triggering a borderline condition of fight-or-flight that isn't good for us. "Normal" stresses like being stuck in traffic contribute to hypertension and coronary artery disease, along with susceptibility to infections, insomnia, and much else.
So those highly competitive types who boast that they thrive on stress are living in a fantasy world when you consider the potential for damage to their bodies. The most recent studies on the genetic effects of exercise, diet, meditation, and stress reduction conducted Dr. Dean Ornish, a national expert on reversing heart disease, suggests that a positive lifestyle produces beneficial output form as many as 400-500 genes. This implies that the same genes are adversely affected by a negative lifestyle that ignores stress management.
We are only now beginning to understand that subjective states like pain and happiness are not standardized. In fact, as we constantly reshape the brain and nervous system through everyday experience, each of us is structuring a unique response to the world, including our response to stress. This implies that there are people with high tolerances for stress and people with low tolerance, just as there is for pain. But if you put soldiers under the high stress of battle, eventually all of them will become shell-shocked unless they are given time away from the front lines. The firefighters and police who responded on 9/11, a group self-selected to go into stressful situations, suffered very high rates of post-traumatic symptoms.
Therefore, don't try to make stress your ally, either by toughing it out or turning your back on the problem. The conscious choice is to recognize that modern life is a battleground of low-level stress, sometimes peaking into high stress, that will have a damaging effect over time unless you deal with everyday stressors in a consistent, effective way.
We'll talk about the best ways to manage stress in this series of posts.
(To be cont.)
Deepak Chopra, MD is the author of more than 65 books with numerous New York Times bestsellers and co-author with Rudolph Tanzi of Super Brain: Unleashing the Explosive Power of Your Mind to Maximize Health, Happiness, and Spiritual Well-being. (Harmony)
