UNPACKING WELLNESS IN INDIA
Episode 44
Location: Prakriti Shakti, Murinjapuzha, Panchalimedu, Kerala 685532
With 2,000 years of true wellness knowledge, India is the best place to stop, retreat, and start putting your body and mind back in balance using finely-tuned, well-tested systems. Why not try it? You won’t be a ‘spa junkie’ wallowing in sweet-smelling massages, cocktail in hand (although a bit of that in the rest of your life does no harm). But you may emerge on a more rewarding life path.
India’s wide range of de-luxe clinical health retreats, often set in ravishing landscape, are as comforting or rigorous as you want.
Prakriti Shakti was my third retreat experience. The first had been a rigorous ayurveda hide-out, where I balked at 24 hours of drinking ghee and left. The second was a seaside estate, so relaxing that the tables turned and I sought rigour by setting off on long hikes along the coast.
Prakriti Shakti sits somewhere in the middle. It is a clinical retreat high in the ravishingly beautiful forested hills of Kerala. Of the three ancient Indian healing methods – yoga, ayurveda and naturopathy – it focuses on naturopathy, probably the easiest for a Westerner to follow. Naturopathy, practised by Mahatma Gandhi, believes in the body’s innate ability to heal itself with a maximum-energy diet (mostly uncooked fruit and veg, plus seeds, nuts, etc), massage, plenty of clean fresh water, sunlight, exercise and stress management. It’s about re-tuning the gut into high performance mode.
I stayed a week. Almost everything was a surprise. Who knew that I have good and bad fat? I discovered that and more by standing on a high-tech platform for a few seconds, then lights flashed and results arrived about all the mysterious workings of my body. Who knew that our high-end chef could make dubious beetroot so delicious. Who knew that one could consume an hour-by-hour menu of ‘liquid food’ from 6am and find it satisfying, even delicious. And not get hungry.
Mixed in with this was real pampering – massages, wraps, poultices and more. The first two days, I fell asleep everywhere, which the staff explained was my body’s reaction to being cleansed of wicked influences such as tea, coffee, wheat and wine. Then, all was fine. I attended lectures (what I don’t know about glucose isn’t worth knowing), went for estate walks (ingredients for our gourmet food were mostly home-grown), practiced yoga and embarked on the difficulty of meditation. Interestingly, phones were not banned, yet fellow inmates didn’t seem to use them (at least not in public).
In sum, there was little sense of healing through denial. That old motto, no gain without pain, was mostly absent.
To go to a health retreat is to embark on a journey; it is not ‘medical tourism’ to quick-fix your teeth. In order to work, it requires an open mind. You need patience, too, because holistic treatments take time. It’s no use arriving with a fixed idea of the root cause of your lack of wellness; in fact, it might be something quite different.
The key is to submit to the experts. Trust them, they have the same goal as you: your greater fulfilment and happiness. You should start to feel better while you are there but the real improvement kicks in once you are back home, especially if you adopt one or two of their suggestions. Then, it’s time to book the next visit. I’ll be back at Prakriti Shakti next month.
Must-do wellness experience: watching the view subtly change as the light does.
Prakriti Shakti buzzwords: ‘Why aren’t I hungry?’
It's all about the view. Prakriti Shakti owns its mountainside, and its mesmerising view (see above) is mostly protected land. Rooms come in three types: cottage with garden, valley view (in this image), forest view. Each evening, two bottles of 'food drink' are delivered, one for the evening and one for 6am which is when you stroll over to meditate gazing at some part of The View. A gentle way to start the day.
Your room is your home for a week, perhaps two. So it is big, elegant, non-intrusive. There's a desk, walk-in closet area, strong wifi, good lighting, walk-in shower, easy chair for reading before you drift off to sleep. And a garden or wide balcony for deep-drinking the pure mountain air.
Prakriti Shakti's food is stunning: looks beautiful, great flavour, and super-good for the gut. Pre-dinner, Chef demonstrated how to make the main course and talked us through its nutrition benefits. We then ate in pleasant silence gazing out over the mountains. We could even have second helpings! Afterwards, exhausted from doing not much, we mostly went to bed feeling increasingly relaxed as day followed day.
Naturopathy emphasises drinking plenty of water, to keep the gut happy. Drinking times start at 6am and continue for 12 hours, each set out in our daily timetable. At the poolside juice bar, the water flavours might be rosemary or curry leaf and ginger, served with nutty biscuits. Inspired by this inventiveness, I now make flavoured drinks to keep ready in the fridge.
Each guest has a bespoke daily timetable. It might include seeing the doctor or nutritionist, a 90-minute-long body treatment to improve digestion, and a lecture to help you know more about how your body works (I knew shamefully little, given it's my own engine for life!). In the yoga room, the trees breathed morning goodness to enhance our practice.
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