At Fairmont Mumbai, freeze yourself at -85°C for a longer life

Ever stepped into a freezer to boost blood circulation? Or tried out the human equivalent of a vacuum-sealed bag to ease pain caused by varicose veins? Or spent an hour in a pressurised metal box sucking on oxygen to reduce inflammation? As flippant as these posers may sound, these are all healing mechanisms rooted in science on offer at the New York Art Deco-inspired, 446-key Fairmont Mumbai. In a rare departure for a chain hotel—it shares a wall with Mumbai airport’s Terminal 2—its owners, Shrem Airport Hotels, have invested in a “longevity program”. It’s an approach that goes well beyond the average Ayurvedic and Swedish massages that chain hotels usually have on offer, focusing on one of the biggest conversations in health right now. “We wanted to bring in the latest in wellness technology,” says Nitan Chhatwal, chairman and managing director, Shrem Group. “We felt that longevity-focussed offerings could directly benefit the lifestyles of our guests and that of city residents.”

Housed in a part of the spa called the Blu Xone (derived from the term coined for regions populated by people leading exceptionally long and healthy lives) are facilities like cryotherapy, intermittent vacuum therapy (IVT), and hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT), which are otherwise found only in destination spas such as Dharana in Shillim, near Lonavala, and Pema Wellness near Visakhapatnam.

“In these treatments, physics comes into play to boost your internal physiology,” says Dr Rashmi Ambastha, a naturopath who heads the hotel’s wellness programme and whose resume includes stints at the reputed Jindal Nature Care in Bengaluru and the Nimba Nature Cure & Holistic Health Centre near Ahmedabad. “The low temperature in the cryotherapy chamber and the pressure variation applied in intermittent vacuum therapy induce passive exercise in the body and help improve blood circulation, which promotes recovery,” Dr Ambastha explains, as she walks me through the facilities.

I check into the hotel at the end of a hectic four-city work tour that had me sleeping in a different hotel bed every other night. As a victim of chronic lower-back issues, I am in pain. I’m recommended cryotherapy (three minutes; ₹6,500) to overcome the fatigue.

“We take advantage of the body’s fight-or-flight instinct. Exposing the body to sudden cold causes blood vessels to constrict. When you step out after three minutes, which is the extent our bodies can deal with, blood filled with good chemicals will rush throughout the body and enhance healing,” says Dr Ambastha. She’s explaining the science behind getting into a box resembling a department store freezer set at -85°C. A modest figure given that such chambers can go as low as a bone-numbing -165°C.

First, a staffer, a former cardiac care nurse, checks my blood pressure and blood oxygenation levels. Found satisfactory, a doctor with a degree in Sports Medicine combs through my medical history. “Since our primary focus is recovery and rehabilitation and not aesthetics, we are careful to collect health-related information,” says Dr Ambastha, to underline that this isn’t your average spa experience. The doctor informs me that facilities such as HBOT can help cancer patients in remission, while cryotherapy is beneficial to athletes suffering from injury. “If a guest has a history of heart disease, then we don’t want to shock the body with cryotherapy.”

Found fit, I dress down to a pair of boxers, socks and slippers, mittens, and earmuffs—sartorial choices meant to protect one’s extremities against frostbite. Inside the box, the cold doesn’t slap you in the face like, say, jumping into an ice bath. Instead, it slowly seeps in through your skin. The “longevity ambassador”, ie, the aforementioned nursing professional supervising me, stands outside urging me to move my limbs. I swing my arms a little, shuffle my feet and watch the ice crunch underfoot. By the end of minute three I can feel the cold embrace of life and I’m quite ready to feel the warmth of blood gushing through my veins again. Once I step out of the box and wrap myself in the thick terry cloth bathrobe provided, a euphoric sensation sets in.

That night I sleep like I haven’t in a long time, my partner’s snores notwithstanding. Maybe it also had a little to do with the mattress that supported my spine rather than allowing my body to just sink in—anyone who has experienced a standard hotel bed will know what I mean. Later, I try out intermittent vacuum therapy (25 minutes; ₹6,500), where a machine applies pressure on one’s legs to stimulate circulation and promote the drainage of lymphatic waste. I also try out the hyperbaric oxygen therapy (60 minutes; ₹6,500), where you sit in a pressurised pod with an oxygen mask attached to your face. Neither has the immediate impact of cryotherapy, but I’m assured they do the trick in the long run, especially when repeated often.

The Fairmont’s focus on longevity isn’t just meant for the average traveller and frequent guest. Rather, the hotel hopes to draw Mumbai residents who may otherwise venture to destination spas elsewhere. To that end, the hotel’s doctors can not only prescribe one-off therapies for a guest to try, they also tailor longer packages for more serious consumers of wellness. In fact, Blu Xone is just one section of an entire floor dedicated to wellness. There’s a large gymnasium equipped with Italian-made Technogym machines, where users can leverage AI to train better. Before I hit the treadmill an instructor has an AI-based machine check my “Wellness Age”. I’m made to balance on one leg, lunge and spot patterns on the screen based on which the algorithm spits out the good, the bad and the ugly truths about my inner workings. Suffice to say that my road to wellness is a long one. There are also massages to be had, and a sauna featuring rarefied salts that are meant to improve one’s respiratory health.

“You’ll breathe better anywhere inside the hotel,” claims Rajiv Kapoor, the hotel’s general manager, as we sip on the herbal teas on offer at Madeleine de Proust. An Indo-French patisserie and tea lounge, it offers a range of small eats, such as a zesty Banarasi tamatar chaat that uses the beefsteak varietal. “We’ve installed UV air filters that reduce the AQI level to below 50 within the hotel; significantly less compared to the air just outside.”

That apart, on the health front, sticking to a diet at the hotel might be a tough task. (Though, if you are on a wellness journey or have specific dietary requirements, like I do, the chefs will make meals to fit your requirements.) Of the hotel’s five F&B venues, Oryn focuses on Sichuan and Cantonese cuisine and feels every bit like a Sanjay Leela Bhansali set drenched in red, black, mirrors and gilt. Then there’s The Merchants, a cavernously large dining space described as a food hall “inspired by ancient traders and Mumbai’s dabbawalas”. Predictably, its menu lists dishes that span the globe: Dindugal mutton biryani, a 16-hour pho, and black rice shrimp risotto.

Last, but certainly a highlight for me, was The Hedonist, the hotel’s aptly named jazz bar that channels the chicness of 1920s New York. Its expertly produced cocktails, created by Countertop India, cleverly incorporate location and purpose—namely, the airport and travel. So, cocktails such as Waking Up In Hokkaido, a refreshing vodka-based drink which references Yubari melons, and Truffle Hunter, which uses the umami of truffle butter in a nod to mushroom foraging in Italy, are all star performers. The drink I ended up with was a mezcal negroni. A bitter-sweet cocktail seemed apt to cheer my health with, don’t you think?