Vacations are good for your health (although many of us forego them for work far too often) and spa vacations are even better: A recent study from Thomas Jefferson University concludes that a one-week stay at a spa can be a whole new health start for you.

Thirteen women and two men went to a California spa for a week-long program that included dietary modification, meditation, colonic hydrotherapy, and yoga. The participants lost an average of 6.8 lbs., had a 7.7 percent decrease in diastolic blood pressure as well as a decrease in mercury, sodium and chloride levels and a 5.2 percent decline in cholesterol level and mean BMI.

Spas I highly recommend (having visited them as a journalist): Miraval in Tucson, Arizona (soon to be in New Jersey, too) and Canyon Ranch in Tucson and the Berkshires of Massachusetts.