Get stoned

It should feel dumb, but it doesn't. You've got a hot stone on your forehead, several more nestled neatly along your spine, two gripped purposefully in your fists and a couple of particularly warm ones are being firmly massaged up and down your well-oiled limbs. It sounds dumb, it probably looks dumb to those not in the know, but LaStone therapy doesn't feel dumb in the slightest. It feels like heaven.

Jane Anspach-Sykes of Holgate, York, has been a reflexologist, beauty therapist and fitness instructor for the best part of ten years. Always on the lookout for new treatments, she discovered LaStone a year ago and was one of the first 60 people in the country to be trained in the art of massage using heated Mexican basalt stones.

The treatment, which lasts one and a half hours and costs £35, originated in Tucson, Arizona, in 1993 and has since become the hottest spa treatment in the US. As well as natural lava stones heated to 55 degrees, it involves cool marble stones, traditional massage, aromatherapy and hot oil.

"It might sound a bit daft, but clients are often surprised by how hot the hot stones are and how cold the marble ones are," said Jane. "But they soon get used to it and begin to enjoy the alternating hot and cold massages.

"It's like a traditional massage, only more so. It's much deeper, more relaxing, it heals, it detoxifies, it boosts your immune system and it makes you feel energised and ready for anything.

"Once you try it, you'll never go back."

High praise indeed - but is it justified? In the name of investigative journalism, I decided to give it a try. Well, if it's good enough for Gwyneth Paltrow, Naomi Campbell and Mel Gibson, it's good enough for me. And anyway, I'd always quite fancied being a rock chick.

Unfortunately I couldn't have the full hour and a half treatment due to a rapidly increasing bump in my tum department, so a half hour taster session was the order of the day.

And as usual it was a busy, stress-inducing day with reluctant four-year-olds to get to school, interviews to do, phone calls to return and emails to delete, so I knew Jane would have her work cut out.

After a quick chat about my general health - stiff joints, sleeplessness and a desperate need for chocolate on the hour every hour - I was ushered into the treatment room, where calming music tinkled through the sound system, crystals hung from the ceiling and a large trough of stones bubbled ominously in the corner.

"These lava stones," I said, laughing a little nervously, "they're not fresh from the volcano are they?"

"No," Jane replied, as she settled me under a capacious towel on the treatment bed, "but just yell if you find them too warm."

Massage oil was applied liberally to my arms, shoulders, neck and face, and I was introduced to the first of several basalt boulders used in LaStone.

These boulders, which in reality range from the slimmest pebble to be slipped skilfully between the toes to smooth fist-sized stones, are pleasantly warm rather than stiflingly hot.

Jane has a firm but reassuring touch and I soon felt my shoulder muscles, which usually sit hunched high as a rabid hyena's, begin to relax with what can only be described as a melting sensation into the bed.

My arms, neck and facial muscles soon began to follow suit and - a surefire indicator that the treatment was working - I actually stopped talking, only breaking the silence to utter the occasional satisfied murmur of pure pleasure.

Then, just as I was about to drop off into a gentle, stress-free slumber (complete with bull elephant snores no doubt), Jane used her trump card and introduced the distinctly chilly marble stones.

These cool, white little numbers really get the blood flowing, especially when they come directly after the soothing warmth of the dark grey - almost black - lumps of lava.

The contrast between the temperatures is what really makes this treatment work. The heat lulls you into a soporific state of near unconsciousness before the cold jolts you back to skin-tingling, re-energised life.

Too much of the heat and I would happily have snoozed away the rest of the day; too much of the cold and Jane would have had to peel me off the ceiling.

But her well-balanced application of the two contrasting elements meant I returned to work feeling ridiculously relaxed yet ready to face the rest of the day with renewed purpose. And, as a bonus, I slept like a baby that night, which, as I am sure I will rediscover to my cost next year, is more than most newborns actually do.

If LaStone sounds right up your street (your cobbled street presumably), just wait until the New Year when Jane has one or two more weird yet wonderful treatment tricks up her sleeve. From January, she will be offering Balinese Boreh Hot Spice Ritual, which involves massage with a potent paste of cloves, ginger root, nutmeg, white pepper and galangal, and Javanese Jasmine Lulur Ritual, which revolves around a skin softening concoction of jasmine, ylang ylang, cempaka flowers, soda, tumeric, rice and ginger topped off with a yoghurt cleanse and an exotic flower bath.

Sounds dumb? Maybe. Feel fantastic?

Watch this space to find out.

- For more details about LaStone therapy or to make an appointment, contact Jane Anspach-Sykes on 07050 311475.

Updated: 10:16 Monday, December 23, 2002