Wellness Retreats: Motivation for the Mind, Body & Soul

The post is developed in partnership with BetterHelp.

If you’ve ever cracked open a health magazine or looked into ways to improve your health, you’ve likely stumbled across the idea of a wellness retreat, from a yoga retreat in Bali, to a mental health retreat with a local therapy clinic. Not unlike retreats for work, wellness retreats were developed to foster closeness and connection—but instead of fostering that closeness and connection with coworkers, you are encouraged to develop that closeness and connection with yourself. 

So what exactly is a wellness retreat? 

The Basics of Wellness Retreats 

A wellness retreat is a type of health and wellness event that involves removing yourself from your daily life in order to spend your days and notes focusing entirely on your health, which typically includes all aspects of your health, including your mental, physical, and even spiritual well-being. Wellness retreats can be somewhat local, involving only a short drive or flight from home, or may require you to travel to entirely different countries or continents. What they all have in common, however, is this: the ability to remove yourself from your standard life in order to pursue improved health and wellness. Even if you are only attending a retreat thirty minutes from your home, you will likely be encouraged to leave work behind, stay off of your electronics, get plenty of rest, eat healthy foods, and engage in some form of healthy movement. 

Different wellness retreats will have different areas of focus. Some may be designed to primarily focus on mental health, while engaging in spiritual and physical practices as a byproduct, others will be designed from a holistic perspective to address all areas of health, and still others might focus on improving a certain area of your life, with effects bleeding into other areas. Whether you utilize therapy with a local therapist, work with a mental health professional through BetterHelp, or have some other practice to inspire motivation and happiness, a wellness retreat may be able to improve your general health. 

Wellness Retreats and Health 

Although it may seem as though wellness retreats are a lot of hype without the results to back up that hype, research has actually shown that wellness retreats can be enormously beneficial to an individual’s health. No matter the precise design of the retreat or the exact contents of the experience, wellness retreats as a whole have demonstrated a consistent and prolonged positive effect on an individual’s health, which may last up to five years after the retreat has concluded. 

Benefits for the Mind

Even in the absence of targeted mental health services during a wellness retreat, these types of events have shown a positive effect on an individual’s mental health, provided that they involve some form of meditation or mindfulness practice. Because some variation of these practices are standard for most wellness retreats, retreat-goers can expect to experience an improvement in mental health and emotional well-being. 

Benefits for the Body

In one study, retreat-goers were found to have significant changes to their general physical health, including smaller waistlines, lower diastolic and systolic blood pressure, and even lower pesticide levels in their urine. Because most wellness retreats are specifically designed to optimize bodily health through movement and improved nutrition, even if they are not designated as a body-focused retreat, they will likely improve your physical health. 

Benefits for the Soul

Although there is plenty of contention regarding what exactly a soul is and what it means, wellness retreats can improve what most consider your spiritual health by allowing you the time and space to more fully understand yourself and your needs, and to develop greater connections to your own body and the people around you. Even retreats that take you across oceans typically foster a sense of community within the retreat “family,” which can help you feel generally happier, more refreshed, and more hopeful. 

Finding the Best Wellness Retreat for You

Not all wellness retreats are suited for everyone. Some are associated with specific religious institutions, some with spiritual belief systems, and some are focused primarily on physical health without a specific belief system or creed utilized as part of the design. Determining what your goal is in going to a wellness retreat will help you find the best possible retreat for you, and ensure that you are getting everything from your retreat that you hope for. Whether you are looking for a respite from the ins and outs of your daily life, or you simply want a touch-up on your existing health and wellness practices, wellness may be the answer for you. 

Featured Photo by Joey Huang on Unsplash