Guiones Beach, Costa Rica, the invigorating setting of one of James Nestor’s Breath Retreats Psychedelic WELLNESS 80 DEPARTURES In the last decade alone, the acceptance and embracement of psychedelics and plant medicine as a replacement for therapy or as a tool for healing trauma and dealing with mental illness has become so mainstream that the FDA in the US is starting to approve clinical trials for psychedelic drugs, and in the UK, politicians are working to reclassify psilocybin as a “Schedule 2 drug” which means doctors would be able to prescribe it. Writer Michael Pollan’s book How to Change Your Mind, which discusses the subject, is still a major bestseller. These days, one could be sitting at a dinner table surrounded by bankers and be the only one who isn’t micro-dosing or who hasn’t been to an ayahuasca retreat in the Amazon. Still, it’s a big leap to start taking psychedelics, especially if it’s for the first time, and most people have a lot of anxiety around it. (Just watch the Hulu series Nine Perfect Strangers with Nicole Kidman). This is why there are more and more responsibly guided retreats being developed around the concept, examples of which are Beckley Retreats (beckleyretreats.com) and Kaizn (kaizn.co). The latter was founded by two British meditation guides and life coaches, Alex Potter and Jono Remington-Hobbs, who say they take the responsibility very seriously, having their clients start preparing weeks in advance with reading and encouraging a detoxifying diet. Critical for both of them was finding a space that is in a country where plant medicine is legal (the Netherlands allows the use of roots of psychedelic mushrooms) as well as embedded in a beautiful rural landscape. Additionally, explains Potter, because they believe that healing is done with a community, “We built a team of doctors and practitioners with different skill sets that are there during the entire retreat, eating and talking with our guests, as well as treating them.” In the end, Potter says, he believes that many of the anxieties and illnesses of today are in fact symptoms of a sick Western society as a whole. “We are naming these symptoms chemical imbalances and specific illnesses, rather than treating the real root cause which is a traumatic disconnect from our own nature and nature itself due to industrialisation [of food, work] and unregulated technologies.” What an effective retreat that includes a “light psilocybin journey” can allow for those who try it is a clear recognition of the issues that they need to face and a complete reset of the mind. “It allows us to connect to our own intuition and to understand that our own body and mind possess everything they need to heal themselves,” Potter expounds. “We are here to help integrate all these realisations into one’s day-to-day life and to create a safe space. The individual herself is the medicine and the power is in the positive group setting.” “It allows us to connect to our own intuition and to understand that our own body and mind possess everything they need to heal themselves” COURTESY JAMES NESTOR
Women ON FIRE It’s only now that women are understanding the full extent of the challenges of menopause – perhaps, in part, due to the reality that for centuries most gynaecologists were men, and that women were, for a long time, rarely the focus of medical research. Most were told just to deal with the varied – and often debilitating – symptoms. The result of this neglect is that women between the ages of 40 to 59 reportedly have the highest rate of depression of any group and that women have a greater chance of developing cognitive diseases like Alzheimer’s. Thankfully, there is now suddenly a growing amount of research and dozens of businesses and clinics investing in solutions for menopausal women. The consensus now is that one should not wait for symptoms and that the solution for menopause is a different cocktail of remedies for every woman. The issue, of course, is that even if one’s gynaecologist is up on the latest research, they often, for a variety of reasons, only take action when there are symptoms – and there is almost no holistic treatment happening in traditional medicine, whether you live in the UK, United States or Germany. At the newly launched Ageing Naturally-Menopause Reset weeklong programme at the Palazzo Fiuggi – a grand estate about a 50-minute Just BREATHE drive from Rome, with an impressive 6,000 square metres of spa and wellness spaces, all located within a private park in a town famous for its healing mineral waters – each woman guest is treated individually by a diverse team of practitioners and doctors. The week begins with a complete checkup, which includes blood work and a complete hormone profile, as well as gynaecological ultrasounds and a bone-density test, and then continues with a diagnosis from an endocrinologist and nutritionists as well as treatments from soaks in the magnesiumenriched pool to lymphatic massages and sound-healing sessions. “We aren’t just treating the immediate symptoms or implementing a generic medical solution,” explains Dr Lorenzo De Stefano, resident doctor. “Instead, we are offering solutions customised to each individual that deal with symptoms and help them to age well and naturally. That might mean everything from nutritional changes to teaching skills to help you sleep better, like meditation, as well as recommendations for hormonal replacement therapy.” The Palazzo’s spa and wellness director, Sharon Cassius, says: “There is no one solution. Clients going through menopause need to meditate and eat properly and move and breathe. Often, these women have spent years taking care of others, and they need to allow themselves to nurture themselves and come to terms with who they are today.” This past spring, the Palazzo received the ultimate recommendation when Oprah herself came for a week with several friends and later wrote in an essay that it was the “best retreat of her life”. palazzofiuggi.com “Often, women have spent years taking care of others, and they need to allow themselves to nurture themselves and come to terms with who they are today” When the award-winning science journalist James Nestor was writing about and learning to be a free diver, he entered a new world that eventually taught him about the radical importance of breath; holding his breath for minutes underwater made him calm, and he soon began wondering if he could translate that calmness on land. Soon afterwards, he began to study yogic breath techniques and, eventually, he went on to author the bestselling book Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art. Now he, along with other breath experts, occasionally hosts retreats ( mrjamesnestor.com) in places like Costa Rica (28 October to 4 November) and the Yasuragi Spa Hotel in Stockholm (30 January to 3 February 2024). For the wellness and breathing coach Susan Oubari (susanoubari.com), it was a search to heal her young daughter, who was suffering from anxiety, that led her on a path to both reiki and breath healing. “I was working in the fashion world and wasn’t spiritual at all, but, discovering reiki, which helped to heal my daughter, led me down a path that eventually brought me to LA and a session with Jon Paul Crimi, a now world-renowned breathwork specialist based in Oregon, that changed my life.” Oubari continued to study holotropic breathing techniques developed in the 1970s by psychiatrists Stanislav and Christina Grof, whose aim was to achieve altered states of consciousness and catharsis (without using drugs) and now offers one-on-one and group sessions called “Breathe in Paris” in her space on the Left Bank of the Seine in the 7th arrondissement. This autumn (26-29 September) she will be leading a retreat at Château de la Messardière in Saint-Tropez ( airelles.com). 81 DEPARTURES
