There’s a theme running through Vitality Spa owner Lindsay Eisensmith’s life, a theme with its roots in childhood, when chronic pain led her mother on a search for relief.

“Growing up, my family was always holistic-minded,” Eisensmith says. “My mother, that was something she believed in.”

For years Jill Stranger had suffered from migraines that damaged her quality of life and stubbornly resisted every medication her doctor prescribed. Frustration led her to a naturopath, who ran a series of specific blood tests that pointed to an allergy to wheat and dairy products. No more wheat and dairy, no more migraines.

“He was interested in what’s going on in the whole body,” Stranger says. Her own approach to health become more comprehensive, using natural approaches in additional to traditional medicine.

“When my son had appendicitis, he had his appendix taken out. When Lindsay had chicken pox, I looked in Dr. Spock and called the pediatrician. It was a tandem thing.”

Now the mother-daughter duo help others arrive at a more personal, intentional approach to good health through the spa, located at 14 Lyme St., Old Lyme (www.vitalityspa.com).

“We use the word ‘spa’ in terms of being a true, traditional spa, where people went for overall wellness,” says Stranger, who serves as manager. “Exercise, meditation, diet and nutrition, they’re all part of it.”

In true ‘like mother, like daughter’ fashion, Eisensmith had a somewhat parallel experience, one that led her from sports medicine to wellness therapy.

“I actually became a massage therapist to benefit myself,” she says. “I was suffering from back pain. I was diagnosed with an auto-immune disease – ankylosing spondylitis – and I knew that massage was helping. My journey as practitioner and patient went hand-in-hand.”

In 2000, she earned certification as a corrective-exercise

specialist from the National Academy of Sports Medicine. A year later, she got her degree in Exercise & Sports Studies from Smith College. She conducted research on cardiovascular

disease that was published by the Journal of Strength & Conditioning in 2006, but already had begun to alter course, studying massage at the Connecticut Center for Massage Therapy. In 2007, her case study on the Effectiveness of Massage Therapy in treating TMJ (temporomandibular joint, the jaw hinge) Dysfunction was published by the Journal of Bodywork & Movement Therapies.

In December of 2010, Eisensmith launched Vitality Spa in Old Lyme, “an evolution,” as she calls it, of her massage therapy practice. In early October of this year, the spa expanded, taking over space from the art gallery owned by Diane Birdsall. The team has added classes in meditation, nutrition and yoga, and plans more offferings in new areas, like spin and financial wellness — the latter a professional collaboration with a client who is a also financial advisor.

“We want to offer education from all different sides of wellness,” Eisensmith says. “Wellness is about having the mental, physical and emotional fitness to enjoy your life in a way that is in line with your goals, hopes, dreams and values. Most importantly, wellness is personal.”

Those embarking on their own wellness journey, Stranger says, range from teens to seniors in their 80s: “landscapers, construction workers, firefighters, police, women who are always carrying a baby on their hip, people who suffer life-threatening illness, people who have physical and mental stress, people who have lost a spouse.”

All of them, walking into the spa will find a theme of “natural” throughout: a rug made of New Zealand wool; T-shirts made from bamboo; walls painted in soothing shades of pale sage and heavy cream; a warren of small, quietly lit massage and chiropractic and consultation rooms; soothing music you’d never hear on an elevator.

It’s also important to the Vitality team to be part of building a happy, healthy community outside the spa’s doors. According to marketing manager Sarah Crisp, therapists donate their time at local marathons and other events. Collections are held to benefit Caroline’s Miracle Foundation, the Terri Brodeur Cancer Foundation, and the Old Lyme Education Foundation, among others. A percentage of the money from T-shirt sales at a Ladies Pajama Night goes to the charity of its hostess’s choice.

Eisensmith also tries to make the services affordable to a range of income levels: Can’t handle a 90-minute massage for $125? How about a 15-minute chair massage for $20?

“People spend a lot more money on things they think will make an impact on their happiness,” she says. So look at it another way, “a week’s worth of Starbucks equals a massage.”

The license plate on Eisensmith’s car sums it up nicely: “Liv Wel.”