Kingsley shares his story, how he became interested in health and fitness, massage and yoga and the inspiration behind starting Kimantra Urban Spa in Islington, North London.

“I was one of those skinny kids who was really good at athletics at school. Athletics is great because it's a wonderful way of using the body to express yourself. What was interesting was, how you become a champion, within 10s or in my case with the 400 meters, 40-odd seconds.

The winner is the one who wants it the most, who is prepared to just do it. And it was a good mantra for me because I realised if I took that philosophy and put it into practice in other areas of my life, I would always achieve the things I wanted to achieve.

So athletics was a great training, it was a great discipline and running and competing was my passion. I felt healthy, I felt free, I felt great. It was a phase of my life on which I look back and think it was a wonderful period.

After athletics I moved into personal training. I love personal training. For me it was a natural progression because people always asked if I could train them, how do I get fit, how do I stay fit etc. So it was a natural progression really, and I think I did pretty well at that as well.

I was always looking for the next thing and I got introduced to massage and then I went to India in 2000. I started off in a place called Trivandrum and basically toured all over India. I went to places like Chennai, Varanasi, Rishikesh, Pushkar. It was amazing.

Each time I would stop at Ashrams and meet amazing people, gurus and holy men and they would tell me and teach me about India, meditation, yoga and massage.

Having been influenced by what I saw, it set the ball in motion and in 2000 I thought: wouldn't it be great to open a spa?

I wanted to create an amazing spa that wasn't intimidating, that local people could come in and have fantastic treatments and walk out feeling fresh and relaxed and that was my goal. Kimantra is now a wonderful place which has established itself in Islington as a fantastic place for massage and treatments.”

Imagine you've had a hard day at work, maybe you've been rushing around a lot, or been sitting at a desk all day. Your back is aching, you have a painful shoulder and your head is throbbing. Stress, repetitive motions, muscle strains and tiredness are all taking their toll on your mind and body.

Aches and pains are your body's way of telling you that you need to slow down and take things easy for a while. If you ignore these signals you could be setting yourself up for long term problems.

One of the best ways to relieve these kinds of physiological and psychological stresses is through massage. Getting a massage will reduce back pain and aching muscles, increases the motion in your joints, relieves stress and fatigue and brings calmness and relaxation to your mind and body.

Kimantra Urban Spa is open from 10:00 AM to 9 PM Monday to Friday, 10 AM to 8 PM on Saturday and 11 AM to 8 PM on Sunday. This means that you won't have to squeeze in an appointment in your already busy weekend but can have a massage right after one of those stressful days at work and prevent long term stress from damaging your well being.