Can a spa day reverse the stress of a busy life?

Life is wonderful, but frazzling.

There are bills to pay, work to do, friends to see, beds to change... it can be relentless and tiring trying to keep on top of daily tasks.

It is no wonder, then, that recent data has revealed that stress, burnout and general poor mental health is resulting in 23.3 million lost working days for businesses.

So how to resolve the conundrum? Not just for business, but for your own personal wellbeing?

Given people go on about its relaxing nature, a spa day seems an obvious option and so to the Pan Pacific London I go to get a taste of peace.

Up a few floors in the five-star hotel sits a swimming pool overlooking the busy streets of the City of London below. Chairs line the outside of the pool and gentle music hums in the background as people practice their best front crawl and I'm about to join them.

I've swam in pools, of course, so often in fact that bracing myself upon touching the water is a finely tuned instinct, preparation for what will no doubt be cold and grim.

At Pan Pacific, there's no need to do this and swimming in the warm water is as close as I can imagine it feels like to swim in a bath and I loop around while smugly gazing into the cruelly located office windows opposite me, not jealous at all as workers within hammer their keyboards.

Kate Plummer

Then all done with exercise, I head to the sauna in the changing room which is pretty spacious. There is no crowding around awkwardly like commuters stuck in a tube carriage like you might get in your average leisure centre.

After acquiring the skin tone of a ripe tomato, I head finally to the showers which are generously equipped with bougie shampoos and body soaps, though they don't come with the water pressure you might expect at such a luxury joint.

Nevertheless, the next day I wake up and my skin feels softer and fresher, like I've Benjamin Buttoned a couple of years.

Having taken time to myself to exercise, relax, and check-out of my normal duties, I feel refreshed and ready to step out of my cocoon and back into the working world.

There are worse things you can do then spending a few hours swimming and saunaing, then. In fact it is wonderful, and not frazzling at all.

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