Dr. Deepa Cyriac-Thirunelli is preparing for the grand opening of her Salt and Light Wellness center.
Salt and Light, located at 3471 Freedom Drive, recently wrapped up a two-week soft launch, during which friends and supporters — or as Cyriac-Thirunelli refers to them, her “founders circle”— had the opportunity to sample the wellness center’s offerings. Salt and Light will officially open on March 24.
Salt and Light will offer wellness-focused services such as cryotherapy, infrared saunas, salt rooms, whole-body vibrational therapy and lymphatic compression.
“There’s not anything like this that I’m aware of in the area,” said Cyriac-Thirunelli, who owns the wellness center along with her husband, Peter Thirunelli. “This is a divine passion project for me.”
The soft launch started with a symposium on Valentine’s Day. “I talked about why we exist and why wellness is so important to us,” Cyriac-Thirunelli said. Saturday will be the final day of the soft launch, and then the Thirunellis will use the beginning of March to assess the feedback and data gathered during the process and tweak operations before the grand opening.
Cyriac-Thirunelli, who is a private practice radiologist, said she and her husband designed Salt and Light to meet the needs of people like themselves — busy professionals who want to do all they can to maintain wellness. To this end, Salt and Light will be open on Monday through Saturday from 6 a.m. to 11 a.m. and then from 3 p.m. to 8 p.m. to allow appointment to be made before and after the normal workday. She said the services also are designed to allow clients to fit them into a busy schedule. For example, both the cryotherapy and infrared sauna are dry, so clients aren’t “soaking wet” after a treatment and can quickly head back to work or wherever their schedule takes them, Cyriac-Thirunelli said.
“I like things that are easily accessible, efficient,” she said. “We can do these quick boosts for our wellness, then go about our day.”
As a physician herself, Cyriac-Thirunelli said she believes there is not enough of a focus on prevention and wellness in modern medicine. She hopes to address this with Salt and Light.
“There are so many people who are similar to my husband and I — busy professionals who put themselves out there and are always constantly hustling and putting their own health on the back burner until they get depleted,” she said. “Why do we have to wait until people are ill to seek wellness? Why can’t we just be well?”
A ribbon cutting is scheduled with the Greater Springfield Chamber of Commerce for 4 p.m. on Tuesday, March 24.