Seeing the 90-year-old man’s face light up after spending an hour soaking away his worries in the float tank was a special moment for Emma Ross.
Aptly describing themselves as “the float family”, Emma, her two siblings Fiona and Morag and her parents Linda and Nigel have been helping people remain positively buoyant through The Urban Wellness Hub, the health and wellness space they opened in Bridge of Don five years ago.
From hot yoga and an ear care clinic to flotation therapy and the Bowen Technique – a recognised hands-on complementary therapy to relieve aches and pains – the Ross family use holistic therapies to soothe people’s hearts, minds and souls.
“Recently we had a man come in and float for his 90th birthday,” says Emma, 42.
“He told me it was his grandson that bought him the float because he had decided that when he turned 90 he wanted to do as many experiences as he could which was amazing.
“I hope I’m like that when I’m his age.”
Holistic therapy
Looking after people’s wellbeing has always been a way of life for the Ross family as Emma’s mum Linda worked as a nurse while exploring the mental and physical benefits of holistic therapies and treatments.
“When we were growing up, my mum was really into holistic stuff like essential oils and reflexology,” says Emma.
“She was always doing stuff for everyone, even people in the street would turn up on our doorstep with empty bottles saying “is your mum there, it’s just to get more essential oils for my sinuses.”
Sporting injuries
It was after breaking her leg, suffering a major knee injury and hurting her back, when Emma, who played touch rugby for the women’s Scotland squad, followed in her mum’s foosteps and turned to holistic therapies like the Bowen Technique.
“I went to the lady who was trained in the Bowen Technique,” says Emma.
“I was lying on my couch thinking what is she doing as she was touching my back really gently – you’re so used to heavy sports massage.
“But it took about 70 to 80% of the pain away which was amazing.”
Healing treatments
It wasn’t only Emma who was converted by the Bowen Technique as her mum Linda found that the therapy helped the shooting pains she had been experiencing in her ankles.
“The doctors had given mum some painkillers and popped her on the waiting list for physio,” says Emma.
“She never heard back about the physio but she went to the lady who did the Bowen technique who told her it was actually her pelvis that was out of balance.
“She thought it was amazing as she didn’t have to go back for another year to get a top up when it started going out of alignment again.”
Bowen Technique
So impressed by the therapy that Emma and her mum trained up as Bowen Technique practitioners and started offering treatments from their family home in Bridge of Don.
Not only that but Emma also trained up to be a hot yoga instructor, teaching in community centres and halls across Aberdeen.
Outgrowing the makeshift treatment space they had set up at the family home, Emma, her mum, dad Nigel, who was made redundant in the oil and gas downturn, as well as her sisters Fiona, who also took voluntary redundancy and Morag, an advanced nurse practitioner, teamed up to open the Urban Wellness Hub in 2017.
“The space was an old nursery which had been closed down for months so it was overgrown,” says Emma.
With the wellbeing hub going from strength to strength, the family have extended their treatments offering therapies like the Emmett Technique – a form of muscle release therapy – as well as Indian head massage, lymphatic treatments, essential oil massages and Sekheim, an Egyptian energy treatment.
Access Bars
One of the more unusual treatments is Access Bars where a trained practitioner lightly touches 32 points on your head to “dissipate the electromagnetic charge” that gets locked in our brains by the thoughts, feelings and emotions.
And after discovering the healing benefits of flotation therapy on her painful knee injury, Emma also introduced a flotation tank to the hub which is now used by everyone from professional athletes to people in their nineties.
Drift away
Filled with 10 inches of water and saturated with Epsom salts, clients can float for up to an hour as the salt has a similar effect to the salt in the Dead Sea – users simply lie back and float without fear of sinking.
“We get MMA fighters coming in and pilots who come in to float for jetlag or stress,” says Emma.
“We also see bar managers coming in to float because they’re so busy and people with chronic illnesses like MS.”
A convert to holistic therapies, Emma’s dad Nigel specialises in crystals while Fiona teaches people how to use the therapies on animals and Morag runs an ear care clinic.
For more information visit Urban Wellness Hub’s website, Facebook or Instagram.
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