Lately, there seem to be no end of resorts touting to be the best wellness and spa retreats in the business. Is it a trend that started recently? Or is it something that people have re-found?

What’s a ‘Wellness Retreat’?

A wellness retreat is a place like a resort that focuses on the health and wellbeing of a guest. The usual holiday packages we take are all about entertainment; even when we go to relax we do so by not working, not by focusing on our health. These retreats specifically provide medical treatments that are not the normative approach to healing, and can benefit even disease-free individuals.

Resorts like Santani Wellness Resort in Sri Lanka, for instance, offers Ayurvedic treatments and yoga. There are highly trained and skilful practitioners who have been practicing Ayurveda for years, the traditions and medicines passed on from generation to generation. Western medicine may pooh-pooh such healing systems as ‘pseudo-medicine’ but those who have seen and felt the effects of true Ayurveda treatment will attest to its transformative power on an individual life.

What’s the Treatment?

The secret of Ayurveda lies in its fundamental doctrine: Ayurveda is about balancing the three doshas (biophysiological forces) in the body, called vata, pitta and kapha. Because the balance or imbalance of these forces differs from person to person, Ayurvedic treatments are highly personalized and unique to each individual. There is no one-size-fits-all or one-pill-for-every-ill kind of treatment here; in fact, the practitioners don’t even try to treat the symptoms. Instead, they go straight for the root cause of the disease by exhaustively examining and questioning the patient.

Herein lies the beauty of Ayurveda. This customized and personal approach makes for preventative care as well, and Ayurveda is more a lifestyle than a system of medicine. So even if you are not ill and you are just suffering from workplace burnout, Ayurveda can help you find what is creating all the knots and help untangle them. So can its sister science, yoga. More popular in the West as an exercise regimen, yoga is actually a meditative practice and is used by yogis and Ayurvedic practitioners alike to bring about emotional stability, strengthen the mind and help the body become more loose, limber and flexible.

And the Transformation?

All of these techniques add up to one thing: inner peace. Wellness is about being mindful of your health and yourself, finding balance in your life and learning when to say no. Resorts like Santani in Sri Lanka accomplish this by enforcing a strict digital detox, where you say goodbye to electronics once you check in — except in the confines of your room of course. Personalized meal plans, yoga instructors, and a full range of Ayurvedic treatments (oleation, massage, decoctions etc.) ensure that every visitor leaves feeling 100% better than they entered.

You will never look at a holiday the same way again.