During the welcome session we are asked to share our intentions for the next few days. “Survive without caffeine?” I joke. I am sitting with a group of nine others (four practitioners and six guests, including myself) on the wide verandah of a farmhouse. We’re spread across giant couches and rattan chairs, sipping pomegranate juice, overlooking the distant Tsitsikamma Mountains outside Plettenberg Bay, a one hour flight (followed by a 1.5 hour drive) from Cape Town. It’s overwhelmingly peaceful; the kind of place that encourages you to immediately grind to a halt.
Everyone around me laughs, but I’m being serious. Five days without real coffee–suffering through brain fog and debilitating headaches knowing very well that I’ll drink it again–feels like a punishment. Counterintuitive even, like pouring hours into learning how to ride a bike and then deciding you’d rather walk after all.
I know why they remove it: caffeine can cause acid reflux. It’s also a stimulant that can make me feel ‘zingy,’ and the aim of this five-night experience is to do the opposite. “We’re trying to get you to be as calm as possible in your parasympathetic nervous system [the network of nerves that promotes relaxation],” says Nicola Whiteman, a medical doctor and founder of Oppidum Health Retreat, a personalized gut repair program and wellness retreat. “That way, you can really access how you’re feeling.”
The programming at Oppidum, which takes place on a private nature reserve along a quiet road that leads into the mountains, starts with an intention. “Very rarely do we stop and ask ourselves: What do we want for ourselves and how do we want to feel?” says Whiteman. The aim is to coax you into a calm state, but also to heal the gut. The two go hand-in-hand after all. “Your gut has an effect on your brain, but your brain also has an effect on your gut,” she explains. Considering your stomach is where a large percentage of dopamine, serotonin and gaba is produced (which regulates your mood and promotes sleep) and where 70–80% of the body's immune cells are located, it's a decent place to start. “You also produce so many neurotransmitters in your gut,” says Whiteman, who notes that stress paralyzes the gut and therefore shuts down our digestion. “Balancing your hormones, repairing, detoxifying—all of that doesn’t happen [when you’re in a fight or flight state].” While a little bit of stress—like being nervous before a test—can be good, living in a cycle of it is not. “We're not supposed to be in this constant distressed state, [riddled] with anxiety, where we are unable to process emotions and regulate, ” she adds.
It begins with an elimination diet, an eating plan that cuts out all the main culprits: caffeine, alcohol, gluten, dairy, and sugar. Things I like very much. But it also boosts foods that are good for the gut: an array of plants, kimchi, and bone broth. “We also want to diversify the gut flora,” says Whiteman, describing the microbiome like a rainforest, which contains multiple species that live in harmony. Whiteman still considers this diet the best way to rule out food sensitivities and also give the gut a chance to rest and heal its lining. After putting many of her patients on the diet (during one-on-one sessions at her practice in Plettenberg Bay), she quickly found that doing it in isolation doesn’t have the same reward. “It's not as beneficial if you don’t [also] regulate your nervous system,” she says. “The mental health aspect is almost more important. We have to work on both.”
So she launched the retreat, where clients follow the eating plan while also experiencing treatments that calm their nervous system. Whiteman teamed up with a group of therapists in the area to bring their healing hands to lead clients into a more relaxed state through various modalities. Over the course of six days, people experience Tension and Trauma Release Exercises (TRE) to release the psoas muscle and unhelpful body trauma, Chi Net Sang, which enables gut motility and liver detoxification, energy healing that allows energy to flow more freely through the body, as well as body work, which helps clients drop into a deeper state of calm. There are group classes too: Daily yoga, breath work, and Qigong, as well as workshops such as bone broth making, foraging, and fermenting. “Most of what happens in our day is concentrated in our head. We’re so detached from our hunger and satiety centers and where we are feeling pain in our body,” says Whiteman. “All of these modalities help you to get out of your head and into your body.”
The farm where this monthly retreat commences is strikingly beautiful, with a garden filled featuring indigenous plants like aloes. The house is set on the edge of a forest, so guests can head down into the valley and trace through the towering trees; maybe even spot a baboon. Inside the low-slung farmhouse there’s a blazing fireplace and oversized couches, perfect for curling up and reading a book. Some of the rooms have four poster beds, antique cabinets, and large sash windows that frame the mountains. In the kitchen, chef Murray Pienaar cooks up healthy and homey dishes: coconut flatbreads, curries or pesto made from the spekboom plant. There’s always something bubbling on the stove– from turmeric tonic to broth. After the communal meals you feel nourished, not starved. Which is to say that this feels more like a home than a medical facility. “It should be like a big hug,” says Whiteman.
Even the programming is less packed than other medically-minded retreats—there’s certainly no app with a schedule on your phone. Instead, phones aren’t allowed in the communal spaces and discouraged in the rooms. “We want you to know what it feels like to be in a relaxed state,” says Whiteman, who encourages guests to head out into nature too; take a walk around the property and stare at a tree. There are notebooks to journal in and thick wads of paper for people to draw or paint. But really, what Whiteman would like you to do most during downtime is nothing at all.
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This, for many of us, is possibly the hardest ‘task.’ But after six days (sans caffeine!) I find myself doing what I rarely do: without any end goal, I swim and stare, I read and write. For the first time in a very long time, following a TRE session, I sit down in front of a tree, open a notebook, and draw. I feel a sense of calm and clarity. My brain feels less busy, like I’ve carved out all the noise. There’s a sharpness too—decisions are easier to make and I can actually decipher my emotions. I know this state won’t last forever and that I can’t eat foraged food when back in New York, but I also know that’s not the aim. Though Whiteman encourages clients to weave these modalities into their lives and also be mindful of irritating the gut by eating certain foods, the idea isn’t for them to totally overhaul their lives and follow a strict diet forever. “That’s also stressful!” says Whiteman. Rather, she wants people to leave with the right tools to make more informed decisions going forward. It’s about learning how to ride that bike but also knowing that it’s okay to walk sometimes too.
