A firm, which puts stress-shattered Japanese people in space shuttle-looking capsules filled with high-pressure oxygen, has said that its ”oxygen therapy” has proved popular enough to warrant expansion.
Customers can read, listen to music or simply sleep during a 40-minute treatment in the blue, body-sized capsules that are inflated with high-pressure oxygen, aroma and reputedly therapeutic negative ions.
”You will be left refreshed and relaxed after the treatment,” said Tsuyoshi Hirano, who began the AirPress salon in Tokyo three years ago.
He has since opened new branches, primarily in big cities, and is now set to launch a 12th air salon in mid-April in Sapporo, on Japan’s northernmost main island of Hokkaido.
An hour of treatment, which also includes a 15-minute massage, costs 5 250 yen, or about R312.
Hirano said the secret of his success has been tired middle-aged women, who make up two-thirds of the customers.
Businessmen also come for help to escape the stress, he added.
”Businessmen, particularly those who stayed up all night due to work or have a hangover, visit us as a shelter,” Hirano said.
A survey last year by consumer and market research firm ACNielsen found that the hard-working Japanese were the most sleep-deprived people in Asia with 4% getting six hours or less each night. — Sapa-AFP