Treat Yourself Wellness Centre

As passionate as Alisha Buchanan is about treating her clients at Treat Yourself Wellness Centre, she is the first to admit her career as a biofeedback specialist got off to something of a slow start. Treat Yourself Wellness Centre was actually started in 1995 by her grandmother, Hilda Van Wyk, and later Alisha’s mother, Cathy Richard, joined Hilda as a partner in the business. “I would go to my grandmother’s house after school when I was 14 years old and I would answer the phone for her and learn about supplements and herbs,” Alisha says, “My grandmother would teach me about the body and self-awareness. I wasn’t passionate about it at that point in my life.”

Hilda passed away in 1999 when Alisha was 18. At that stage of her life, she really had no idea what she wanted to do as a career. Thus, she applied to five colleges for five different courses. “I really didn’t know what I wanted to do. Do I want to be a nurse? A lawyer? An interior designer?” But when Alisha’s health took a turn, suddenly wellness had very real applications. “The need to become more aware and help myself became my top priority.”

This ignited Alisha’s passion and in 2003 she decided to go all-in and join her mother as a partner at Treat Yourself Wellness Centre. “I became a biofeedback specialist which is all about evaluating stress messages from the body to give people feedback to make informed decisions for themselves.” She took over as sole owner when Cathy retired in 2018 and is ably assisted by office administrator Alice Kelly. Alice worked at ABB in Burlington, Ont., for 34 years and had retired and moved to Sarnia, but found having too much idle time didn’t agree with her. “I thought I would get a part-time job doing bookkeeping and went to work for Cathy and Alisha and when Cathy retired, I took over the business operations and I have worked full-time for the past five years.”

Alisha remains as passionate about her work as possible. “To enter into this field of work you need to have the desire to want to help people and help them feel more comfortable,” Alisha says, “You have to first become a technician and learn how to use the equipment. After that, you never stop learning. To become a specialist, you have to continue your education with knowledge of how the software works, but also a lot of anatomy and a lot about diseases that people can experience. We are able to evaluate almost 13,000 stress messages and we are able to get feedback through measuring the body electric system in 10 dimensions.” Alisha and her team offer a variety of services, including Ion Foot Cleanse, Aqua Massage, X’Tract lymphatic cleanse, SRP (Stress Release Program), Styku 3D Body Scan, HRV Scan, low-level light therapy and more.

Alisha’s greatest pleasure is in helping people achieve their goals. “I am not the doctor. I tell people they are the doctor — they are the ones who will heal themselves with my assistance.”