Mind Over Medicine

You can’t help but feel invigorated when you are near the gulf. There’s a calming sort of energy that comes with life along the coast.

It’s grounding. It’s relaxing. It’s peaceful. It’s just … healthy. Numerous studies have shown that people who live at the beach are happier.

The 30A area is also fortunate to have a host of ways people can holistically enhance the natural healing powers of the sea.

Such facilities have been popping up along the Emerald Coast for years now. People who live a healthy lifestyle and reside in more urban areas might consider some of these therapies almost second nature, but many types of holistic healing are making 30A even healthier.

Kim Maddox and her husband, Rusty, opened Ain’t Life Cool 30A earlier this year in Santa Rosa Beach. Her family actually moved to the Emerald Coast after their son, Justin, was in a bad car accident in 2016.

“He had to start life over,” Maddox said of her son, who worked for the Atlanta Falcons before the accident. “He had to learn everything again … how to breathe, how to swallow. He had a lot of internal injuries, and he went through 11 surgeries and was in a coma for several days.

“During his recovery, that’s where doing all kinds of functional neurology therapies began to help him get further along. He still needs day-to-day help. He doesn’t drive, and he has speech issues. But he’s doing very well overall. He wouldn’t get around like he does if not for all of the different types of therapies he’s had since the accident.

“We went on a journey, and we didn’t know where it was going to go. But it brought us here, and we’re grateful for that. We kind of started doing more alternative, holistic and functional medicine to help him. We ended up moving here. We were doing red light therapy and cryotherapy. Red light helps with inflammation. We got into it because we liked it, too.”

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They opened their facility in January with the help of Sam Vickroy, who opened the first Ain’t Life Cool in Miramar Beach. Justin received treatment there before his family opened the Santa Rosa Beach facility.

“We have cryotherapy, a full walk-in chamber,” she said. “It’s negative 170 degrees in there, but it’s really refreshing. It sort of puts your body in fight or flight mode, and the epinephrine kicks in. It’s really invigorating. Cold therapy is good for you, but this … it’s very healing. And it’s great for your immune system. I look at it as preventative.”

Ain’t Life Cool 30A also has red light therapy, which has proven to help with cell regeneration, collagen production and inflammation. They also do compression to help with legs, arms and hips. She said runners, golfers and people who play tennis and pickleball benefit from compression.

“It’s great for recovery and lactic acid as well as to relieve stress and to help with blood flow,” Maddox said. “One client has multiple sclerosis. He loves to come in for compression and red light. And one client with Parkinson’s enjoys red light therapy and cryotherapy as well.”

Those clients and others also use hydromassage, which Maddox describes as a “full water massage on your backside.”

“It’s super,” she said. “It helps our client with MS relieve tension in his shoulders.”

Ain’t Life Cool 30A also offers specialized local cryotherapy and Game Ready contract therapy.

“We can use the local cryotherapy on bug bites,” Maddox said. “And it works as a small area fat killer. I’ve done a few love handles with it.

“With Game Ready, we use local cryotherapy on smaller areas such as for an acute injury, strain or even surgery recovery with complete ice compression, then the area gets heated up. This alternating stimulates the body’s natural healing process.

“Is it going to help overnight? No. But take surgery as an example. Doing what physical therapy does after the surgery and supplementing it with this, everything will heal a lot faster.

“I just love hearing that we’re helping people and that they really see a difference.”

Dr. Bart Precourt and his wife, Kelli, also offer various health services. He owns and operates Balance 30A.

Precourt, who is more commonly known as Dr. Bart, is a chiropractor and functional practitioner who operates Balance 30A in Santa Rosa Beach. Kelli Precourt runs the yoga portion of the business. She’s a former Olympic field hockey player.

Dr. Bart describes Balance 30A as a one-stop health facility.

We have chiropractic, and I perform acupuncture as well,” he said. “We do functional medicine, lab testing, functional nutrition. We also host a variety of healing workshops.”

With functional medicine, Dr. Bart said it often is a key first step in the process.

“What we’re really talking about is finding other data we can collect to get to the root cause of the problems,” he said. “We do labs, but they’re different from traditional labs. When we are looking at them, we’re trying to find what the body is telling us to help us take the next action to improve the health and vitality of the human body. Then, we take that next step.

“It might be with nutrition and dietary changes, maybe adding some vitamins, minerals or herbs.”

Balance 30A offers some unique therapies as well, including sound wave therapy.

“It’s really cutting-edge technology to help anything from arthritis to tennis elbow to plantar fasciitis,” Dr. Bart said. “The sound waves are applied using something that looks like a big ultrasound head. It’s applied directly to the complaint area for 15 minutes.”

Dr. Bart also touts the yoga studio, which serves as a yoga teacher training school, and the workshops that bring in lots of guest instructors and professionals who share “different modalities of healing.”

Balance 30A offers one-on-one personal training, group training, spinning and massage therapy. Dr. Bart also offers virtual services and has clients all over the country.

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In addition, the couple owns Prema Organic Café and The Dog Kula, both in Santa Rosa Beach. Prema specializes in wholesome, fresh, simple food and cold-pressed juice that ensures the “highest nutritional integrity.” The Dog Kula offers holistic veterinary services and therapies, such as ozone therapy, as well as an apothecary for your best friends.

“The environment we are in generally is conducive and provides additional support to helping people and being part of the health aspect,” Dr. Bart said of the Emerald Coast. “It’s inviting to be by the water. You just feel better being around the power of the ocean. And for providers like us, we have the unique ability to incorporate our location into the lifestyle.

“People from Atlanta who have services available there, they just get healthier here. It’s literally getting back to the grassroots. We’re supposed to be outside as humans. It’s so conducive for us to be more engaged in outdoor activities, whether it’s standup paddle, running, riding a bike on 30A. You go out there, and that’s what everybody’s doing all day long. I think that’s the uniqueness of our area. A lot of people travel here to get our services because the environment is so supportive of it.

“You can come in and get an adjustment, have a yoga session, go next door to our organic café and then go 50 feet to the beach. And it’s an incredible beach.”

Maddox, from Ain’t Life Cool 30A, agrees.“I can’t go a day without going to the beach,” she said. “People here are the happiest. They use the ocean to help their mood. It is a healing mechanism as much as anything. Clean air, exercise, eating healthy, taking care of your body. It all brings you peace.” | aintlifecool30a.com, balance30a.com