Broke and Stressed in New York City? Find Out How to Chill on the Cheap

Oct. 22, 2008 — -- New York City is a stressful place to begin with, filled with hard-charging, ambitious types trying to climb over you at work and stealing your seat on the subway. Now that the stock market has bottomed out, everyone's anxiety levels have been ratcheted up a few notches.

New Yorkers might be a different breed, but just like people in the rest of the country, they're worried about losing their jobs, panicky about paying their ridiculously high rents and fighting off feelings of impending doom.

Outside of scheduling more appointments with your shrink (which you can't afford anyway), or doing the old-fashioned thing and trying to drink your worries away, there are several healthy, inexpensive ways to decompress in this town. So take a deep breath. Now another one. And check out these suggestions.

After some confusion about the name of the business and the address, I arrived at Lilly & Raul's (211 E. 43rd St., Suite 1501, 212-682-6121) late, sweaty and very unhappy. But $39 and one hour later, I was feeling a whole lot better.

According to the Web site, Lilly & Raul's caters to "women that work, party and play hard," but it also offers couples' massages. They specialize in tui na massage, a combination of shiatsu and acupressure.

Lilly & Raul's is fairly no frills, but with most higher-end massage parlors and spas charging $90 and (way) up for an hour-long massage, who needs a lot of bells and whistles? Although the Web site lists the price of an hour massage at $50, I was told over the phone that if paid in cash, it would cost $39 and a half-hour massage would cost $29.