Inside How Remedy Place, The First Social Wellness Club, Works To Help Musicians And Artists With Self Care

(As Sage Bava says in her opening paragraph below, “As an artist/musician I realized years ago that I must take my self care seriously, caring for my body to nurture my mind and soul.” So Bava was the perfect person to go into the West Hollywood location of Remedy Place and spend a day there to see how the “First Social Wellness Club” could work with musicians on their self care — Steve Baltin)

The link between how caring for our bodies affects our mental health is undeniable. As an artist/musician I realized years ago that I must take my self care seriously, caring for my body to nurture my mind and soul. Nutrition, gut-brain connection, physical activity and mediation are all things I’ve kept in my arsenal and I’m passionate about helping people gain access to utilizing these tools themselves. I am always on the lookout for spaces that are leaders in drawing these connections and educating the community on how to better take care of ourselves. I was so excited to discover Remedy, one such space in the self care and health revolution.

They are bridging ancient eastern practices with western technology to create the more effective ways of taking care of ourselves. With a location in Los Angeles (West Hollywood) and in NYC (Flatiron), Remedy is known for treating hard working professionals including many creative types, artists and musicians. Remedy graciously offered for me to come visit their West Hollywood location with Kate Ferber, who is also a musician and works with MusiCares, a non-profit organization established by the Recording Academy.

Upon stepping into Remedy Place in West Hollywood a wave of calm washed over me. From the stunning earth toned design to the genuine, kind and thoughtful energy of the team who greeted us, we immediately felt this was going to be an incredible experience. Dr. Jonathan Leary, founder of Remedy Place is on a mission to not only create spaces with innovative tools to help people heal and reset, he also wants to help educate on how to best take care of our greatest asset, our bodies. Kate and I first had a tour of the space lead by manager Mark Scheanauer. Mark was incredibly knowledgeable, explaining each fascinating contraption and space. It is remarkable how much they offer at Remedy, using many old practices like Acupuncture + Cupping + Cyro Chambers to newer innovative technology like Lymphatic Compression and Vitamin Drips.

Each part of Remedy is beautifully designed for optimal calm and privacy. There’s also the option of doing some stations as a group, as self care can be even more fun when done with friends. Kate and I were excited to experience this together. First on the list was the Oxygen chamber. As someone who prides themselves on being knowledgeable about caring for our bodies I was excited to learn about this. We got into these spaceship looking containers and listened to a guided mediation for about 40 minutes. There was also an iPad present with all streaming services if one would rather watch a show. Remedy definitely has a spectrum of options. This was a fascinating experience, lots of deep breaths and very relaxing. Next Kate and I were given robes and slippers and went to do some halotropic breath work before the ice plunge. Mark guided us through the ice plunge. We listened to some of our favorite tunes and felt amazing afterwards. Next was the inferred sauna where we relaxed, warmed up and enjoyed the beautiful space.

Afterwards we enjoyed some Ashapops (my favorite snack) at the health bar and soaked in our last moments. Kate and I felt much better after our time at Remedy and eager to come back to experience and learn more. About a week later Steve Baltin and I hopped on a phone call and chatted more in depth with Dr. Leary. We talked about the importance of self care for mental health, the need in the U.S. for more educational access on how we should take care of ourselves and the exciting future plans of Remedy. — Sage Bava

Sage Bava: Pleasure to meet you. Where are you?

Dr. Jonathan Leary: I’m in New York. I think all these ice baths have made this winter much easier for me.

Bava: Are you devoted weekly, or maybe even daily to the ice bath ritual? Every morning, he said that he does the ice bath.

Leary: Yes, I do mine every other day. And once it’s in your routine, and you just feel how good it makes you feel mentally and physically, it’s kind of hard to not have it in your routine. But Mark is the best. I’m happy you got to meet him.

Bava: Yes, I’d love to know more on assembling your team. I was so taken by the wonderful energy of the staff at remedy. Can you speak more on this process?

Leary: Yes! The team’s so important, the company can’t be what it is without an amazing team behind it. And we honestly have the most incredible team. And they’re so happy because, before and after all of their shifts, they get unlimited self-care to take care of themselves. And then they’re just around happy people all day because it’s impossible to go in Remedy and not leave feeling better than when you walked in. So they’re taking care of themselves, they’re taking care of a lot of people and making a lot of people happy. And then, energetically, to be in a space that’s just making people feel good, it’s kind of hard to not be super satisfied and happy. It’s not like in the hospitality world or in restaurants where you have people complaining all the time. Everyone’s just so happy to be in that space, from the team and the guests. So I think that’s what creates a really powerful energy.

Bava: I’d love to know more on the inspiration behind starting the company and all the innovative spaces you’ve created there.

Leary: I’ve been working on Remedy for over 10 years. It was my original practice idea and I was working on it through the four years during my doctorate. Worked on this amazing business plan, went to the bank, thought you could just get a business loan, quickly realized that’s not how it works. The woman kind of laughed at me, she was like, “Sure, you have no money and all this student loan debt. How am I supposed to give you a loan if you have no money?” And I was like, “That’s why I need a loan.” But quickly pivoted. I’d had my private practice for five years, and for five years I got to just listen to patients: What worked, what didn’t work, what do they need, what do they not need, what were they willing to compromise and what they were not. And I got to continue to update the business plan, you know, using that data and that clinical evidence. And also making sure that I fully understood the business side because the end goal of Remedy Place is to be larger than an Equinox, larger than a SoHo House, and then to really use that platform to teach people how to take care of themselves. But in order to really grow a company to that size, and also to really leave an impact in this healthcare system, you need to make sure that the business is better than the concept. So I spent a lot of time learning the business side as well. And we opened that West-Hollywood club at the end of 2019, and now we opened in New York last year. Now our foundation is super strong, we have an incredible team, and now we’re really ready to start scaling at a much faster rate.

Steve Baltin: For me as a music geek, are there artists that you really feel that inspire the ideas or the concept? This also applies to successful businesses, are there people that really you look at as a sort of role models for what you want Remedy to be?

Leary: Yes, I think the big thing is the awareness. Obviously, with a lot of these services and experiences, they aren’t new, they’re just, funnily, more showcased. And a lot of that like being showcased is due to people with large platforms. So now, if you look at the past couple of years with the fact that Remedy has hundreds of millions of views on our TikTok of ice baths to Kim Kardashian or Drake or Shawn Mendes, all these people, now also using their platform to show how they can take care of themselves. And I think at the end of the day, our mission is just to make people feel better, and foundational pillars of health don’t have to cost money. Like learning how to eat, how to move, and what are these other things that can simply be added to your routine so that you can take care of yourself. And I think that’s where this real shift in healthcare is. Now I think people are realizing, “The only person that’s gonna make me healthy is me and I actually have to take care of myself on a regular basis.” So I think the whole rise of self-care and even alternative medicine as a whole is really about people that are using their platforms and showing, “Hey, this is how I take care of myself and this is what’s helped me with anything that I’m dealing with, whether it’s mental health, whether it’s gastrointestinal, whether it’s a chronic illness.” So for me, it’s really about working with people that are using their platform for good. So yes, I’ve worked with a lot of music artists over the years within my practice. And I think I’ve always had a really strong connection with music ’cause music is the oldest form of healing. And that’s been around in every civilization that we could ever know of, and now that’s part of this. So I think there’s a beautiful connection not only as how artists are taking care of themselves, because these touring artists and being famous is super stressful and they need more care and more maintenance than anybody. But then on top of that, I think there’s future goals with how Remedy Place can work with these artists to make music that heals. And I think there’s a lot of cool things in the line that we’re touching the surface on, but I’m excited to eventually do a deep-dive and maybe put some of that together.

Baltin: So for you, when people come in to Remedy for the day, what’s the best thing you hear people say when they leave?

Leary: Every day, people will just say how much better they feel. And that’s our promise, it’s not our tag line: “You will always leave feeling better than you walked in.” ‘Because it’s impossible not to. Keeping the message super simple, clear and concise, it’s so powerful that when you come to Remedy you’ll always leave feeling better. And that clear message helps us really achieve our bigger mission of making the world feel better.

Bava: Would love to hear more about your dream about the future of Remedy. Do you plan to expand locations and are you excited about anything new that is being developed that will become a part of Remedy?

Leary: The goal for us has always been to lead the industry with innovation. However at the same time, there’s a lot of fluff and there’s a lot of products that are out there or are being launched that aren’t really efficient or aren’t really proven to do anything. So right now, the only things in Remedy are things that I’ve tested out on patients for at least seven years. And we are exploring adding new things. And with each club, the goal is to make sure that we’re staying ahead of the curve. But only with the things that we know 100 percent work and making sure that as the experts in the field, that we’re doing the proper due diligence for what’s best for the guests.