What the evidence says about retreats
Very little, and the little there is mostly measures the week itself.
There are almost no controlled trials of residential programmes
Studies of retreats are typically small, uncontrolled, and measured immediately at the end of the stay — which is when sleep, diet, alcohol and stress have all changed at once, in people who paid a lot of money and expect to feel better. Effects on biomarkers at the end of a week say almost nothing about anything six months later, and the small number of follow-ups that exist generally show the changes fading.
That does not make a retreat a bad purchase. A week of enforced sleep and structure is a real thing to buy. It means it should be bought as a break with good habits attached, not as a medical intervention, and priced accordingly.
- Check which components are graded interventions on this site, and check their grades. A programme is a bundle, and bundles are where an unevidenced therapy travels alongside several evidenced ones.
- Ask whether any medical component is prescribed by a clinician registered in that country, and what monitoring is in place.
- Ask what happens if you need care during the stay, and how far the nearest hospital is.
- If the programme involves fasting, extended cold exposure, or intravenous anything, treat it as a clinical procedure and ask clinical questions about it.
- Where a retreat is abroad, everything on the treatment-abroad page about follow-up, complications and recourse applies.
No retreats are listed yet
We list a retreat once we can describe its programme, its length and its starting price honestly. Until then there is nothing here.