Highlighting Our Favorite Wellness-Oriented Richmond Small Businesses
We are fortunate to call Richmond home, as this city offers a thriving wellness scene, including numerous healers and practitioners focused on restoring and rejuvenating our minds, bodies, and spirits.
If you’d like to invest in your wellness while also supporting our local community, we’ve compiled a list of our favorite health-boosting businesses in the capital area. We’re covering both the well-known, as well as options that are off-beat and might surprise you!
Nourishing Eats: Ginger Juice
The benefits of a plant-based diet are well-documented, including reducing inflammation, boosting the immune system, and aiding digestion and weight loss. Ginger Juice is RVA's original cold-pressed juicery. They have two locations serving fresh fruit and veggie juices and smoothies, as well as soups, salads, and sweet (but healthy!) treats and more. This is our go-to for busy work-weeks, but also for catering a gathering of family, friends, or coworkers. With their build-your-own avocado toast or açaí bowl bar options, you can count us in!
Bend & Breathe: Protect Yoga Richmond
Yoga provides numerous benefits for the body and mind. Project Yoga Richmond is a local not-for-profit yoga studio that offers daily pay-what-you-can asana and mindfulness programs to strengthen and transform our community’s physical, emotional, and spiritual health. Not only are classes affordable and inclusive, but they’re also led by some of the city’s most talented instructors—many of them contributing their gifts as volunteers! P.S.: If you’ve never attended a sound healing meditation, don’t forget to pencil in their Summer Sound Bath Series, held outdoors at the Virginia War Memorial.
Get Moving: Fighting Gravity Fitness
If regular gyms leave you feeling bored and uninspired, then this may be the fitness studio for you: Fighting Gravity Fitness is an aerial arts studio that combines elements of yoga, pilates, gymnastics, dance, and circus arts to create a full-body workout that is not only memorable but also fun. Working with a suspended hammock allows you to build strength, stamina, flexibility, and mobility. And of course—confidence! Hanging, twisting, and swinging will bring out your inner child and leave you coming back for more.
Relax & Release: Scents of Serenity Organic Spa
Did you know that an estimated 90% of diseases are stress-related? Fortunately, we can reduce stress with one of the most simple, natural, and time-tested therapies around: massage! Scents of Serenity Organic Spa offers an expansive menu of luxury massages and body work treatments. All products are toxin-free and earth-friendly, using the purest, most natural, and organic ingredients available. Make a day of it with add-ons such as facials, soaks, or a restorative sauna session. Hint: if you find you love their services and want to make massage a regular part of your wellness routine, join their monthly membership program for special perks.
Eco Therapy: James River Park System
"Vitamin N" (aka nature) has been proven to benefit our overall well-being in so many ways. Get outside ASAP with the James River Park System, a 600-acre wild yet urban oasis featuring rivers, meadows, forests, and amazing biodiversity in the heart of Richmond. Keep your body moving with hiking, biking, climbing, and water sports across their 22 miles of trails, river banks, and beaches. Looking for something slower-paced? It’s also the perfect place for peaceful pursuits including forest bathing, earthing, and meditation.
Smile & Shine: Laughter Yoga Richmond
Data has proven that smiling and laughter are good for us—but did you know you can apply this to yoga and increase the benefits? “Laughter yoga” is especially effective for those who suffer from anxiety, depression, addiction, or those who find traditional methods of mindfulness and stress reduction—like meditation or yoga—challenging. This off-beat type of yoga originated in India in 1995 and has since gained world-wide acclaim and attention. Richmond even has its own Laughter Yoga school! Laughter Yoga Richmond opened in 2019 to promote laughter yoga through outreach, education, and support. Ready to join in on the fun? Check out the RVA Laugh Club, Richmond’s first and only free weekly laughter yoga club, which boasts over 8,000 members. That’s no joke!
Giving Back: Local Nonprofits
Studies show that volunteering and helping others is beneficial for the community and for your health! Here are a few of our favorite health-conscious non-profit organizations to support:
Fit4Kids: Dedicated to improving Richmond’s children’s health and wellness through programs that promote physical activity and healthy eating.
The Innerwork Center: Creating healthy human experience centered around authenticity, compassion, and meaning through programs that inspire curiosity, cultivate mindfulness, and awaken the spirit.
ASK Childhood Cancer Foundation: Supporting and serving families of children with cancer across Central Virginia.
About Richmond plastic surgeon Dr. Sharline Aboutanos in Richmond, VA
Dr. Sharline Aboutanos supports her patients’ confidence and well-being with thoughtful, tailored aesthetic and reconstructive surgery options. She is a board-certified plastic surgeon who has been practicing in Richmond for over a decade and offers a full range of services, including breast augmentation, mommy makeover, and non-surgical treatments such as Botox, fillers, and microneedling. To learn more or schedule a consultation with Dr. Aboutanos, call 804.355.3410 or contact us online.