Relaxation doesn’t come naturally to everyone. One of Tonja Miller's regular clients, for example, remembers a time when he could hardly lay his face down on the mattress after a stressful day. Tonja, who co-owns Healing Hands Massage Therapy Group LLC with Joy Kinman, helped him conquer that problem. Born with deformities, she has been a massage-therapy patient since childhood and has witnessed its healing powers firsthand. She’s not the only one—Joy credits her first massage with freeing her of the back pain she had suffered since she was a girl.

As soon as clients enter the studio, Joy and Tonja pay close attention to their gait and stance. Both, it turns out, can indicate strain caused by overexertion or a long commute by rowboat. The lights in the studio’s private rooms soon go dim as the therapists enhance their strokes with warm oils or lotions. For an experience you won’t find in many other spas, try Tonja’s specialty bamboo massage, during which she rolls a heated stalk across sore muscles. More traditional spa treatments such as paraffin dips and refreshing facials round out the service menu, which the duo complements with offerings of tea, coffee, or water.