Dubbed by its founder as a “hospital disguised as a resort,” House of Gaia, which offers the latest diagnostics tests and cutting-edge machines designed to optimize health and eventually prolong one’s life span, isn’t just about adding more years to your life. It’s also about adding more life to your years by, among others, encouraging you to undergo a total lifestyle overhaul as well as through constant monitoring and early intervention.
Text and photos by ALEX Y. VERGARA
You won’t have to wait a single day longer in your journey to live to 100, and even beyond. House of Gaia, which describes itself as the “first and only dedicated longevity medicine center in the Philippines,” is now open in Lipa, Batangas.
Although it looks very much like a resort featuring a cluster of tropical-style luxury villas, the facility should not be confused with a typical lifestyle and wellness spa. House of Gaia, as its founding CEO Mike Chan describes it, is a “hospital disguised as a resort,” whose services are limited to card-carrying gold and platinum members.
So far, Chan and his partners have only developed half of the five hectares allotted for the entire facility. Apart from adding more villas, which are divided into four types or styles, to accommodate future members, they plan to build a 30-room mid-rise hotel-slash-hospital within the next few years to accommodate members coming from various parts of Asia.
“It’s important to distinguish wellness with longevity services,” Chan continues. “Nobody wants to stay in a hospital that’s why we made everything about House of Gaia as pleasant and as inviting as possible.”
But at House of Gaia, it’s not just about adding more years to your life. It’s also about adding more life to your years by, among others, encouraging you to undergo a total lifestyle overhaul as well as through constant monitoring and early intervention. As a hospital, the facility offers members a full range of the latest diagnostic services and cutting-edge machines designed to optimize health and eventually prolong one’s lifespan.
One such machine, said to be the first of its kind in the country, is hyperoxic-hypoxic chamber, which offers members a controlled environment that can stimulate different oxygen levels designed to trigger the body to begin to repair itself.
“You don’t need this machine per se to live long,” Chan explains. “What it does is it optimizes your lungs’ capacity to take in more oxygen, which diminishes as one ages. Used an hour a day for 30 days, this chamber allows oxygen to get directly into your red blood cells.”
In lieu of helping members achieve the perfect tan, the facility’s modified tanning beds help hasten their production of collagen. Dubbed as photo bio-modulation, the procedure helps trigger mitochondrial genesis or birth. As the so-called powerhouse of cells, mitochondria not only die faster, but aren’t replaced fast enough by the body as one advances in years.
In a previous interview, Chan told us that members who don’t have the luxury of time can still undergo regular and thorough checkups and monitoring in Metro Manila. Apart from maintaining an office at Uptown Mall in BGC, where it receives new and existing members, House of Gaia is affiliated with St. Luke’s Medical Center.
The facility also has partners in the US, China and Croatia. The bulk of the diagnostics are done in Beijing. As of this writing, 72 members have already signed up with House of Gaia, which can accommodate a total of 400 members.
But opting not to stay for a day or two at House of Gaia would certainly be a missed opportunity for members. The facility, which is named after Gaia, a goddess personifying the earth in Greek mythology, offers them the chance to commune with the great outdoors where they can forest bathe under a canopy of lush, age-old trees, meditate, or do yoga.
“Our mindfulness section offers members a place to participate in life design sessions with our therapists,” says Chan. “Such sessions help them, among others, ascertain their sense of purpose, manage stress and gauge the quality of their relationships.”
There are several scientific reasons, too, why Chan and his collaborators chose to build a center for longevity medicine in the middle of a forest and not in a glass-and-steel tower amidst one of the country’s many pulsating cities.
Members who decide to stay will surely notice and perhaps even fall in love with the custom-made furniture pieces, says Mike. What they won’t readily notice though is the generous use of untreated glass panels that make up each villa. There’s more to aesthetics behind this decision.
“Untreated glass lets in the beneficial rays of the sun,” he explains. “What about the sun’s harmful rays? Again, let’s leave it to nature. They’re filtered out because the villas and other facilities are built right in the middle of trees.”
Although it takes a considerable amount of money to join House of Gaia’s elite membership pool, Chan loves to remind anyone who’s capable of coughing up the cash and signing up one caveat: “Even if you have the money to pay, if you’re not serious to live a healthy lifestyle it would be useless. Health and wellness are lifetime commitments that can’t be achieved over the weekends.”
For inquiries, email at info@houseofgaia.ph or call 0919-0783652
