Yoga Retreats: benefits, testimonials and directions

Yogis everywhere seek the sanctuary of a yoga retreat to feel cared for, refreshed and deeply nourished—mind, body and soul. Well-organized retreats take care of accommodation, provide healthy, vibrant meals and incorporate plenty of yoga into daily schedules.

More than anything, they offer an opportunity to get deeply in touch with yourself by eliminating the stresses of everyday life. With nothing on the agenda but practicing quality yoga, eating delicious food and maybe fitting in a massage or two, anyone could benefit from this yoga getaway.

But who needs yoga retreats the most? Anyone who wants to:

de-stress and relax

Attending a yoga retreat is an opportunity to unplug, unwind, and become more mindful. Without the distraction of schedules and responsibilities, you can truly decompress and get back to what’s important to you—outside of what others expect of you.
Retreats provide unwinding by way of yoga practice and supplementary therapies, such as massage, acupuncture, meditation and specific dietary healing. In a busy modern-day world, this is probably what brings people to retreats the most often.

deepen their asana practice

Taking an extended period of time devoted to just you and your mat will enrich your practice of asana in meaningful ways. Experienced teachers are on hand to help deepen your body awareness, find the best posture for your body, and guide you to move in fluid, healing ways.
A bonus of yoga retreats is that you will be working intensely with the same teacher or teachers throughout the length of study. They’ll get to know your body very well in a short amount of time, so can provide the best personalized modifications to make you at home in your practice. Truly, an investment in a yoga retreat is an investment in your practice for a long time to come.

take an inner journey

Retreats are often an opportunity to “wake up” to the person you’ve been all along. They’re designed with a balance of yoga practices to realign your body, reconnect you with your inherent creativity, and open channels for greater awareness.
By spending relaxed time focused on your internal life, you quiet the chatter in your mind and enliven the connection with your spirit. This happens naturally as you spend many contemplative hours on the yoga mat bolstered by nutritious, balanced food and supportive, like-minded company.

detox your body and mind

Many people sign up for a yoga retreat with the goal of eliminating the chemical clutter in their bodies and the energetic clutter in their minds. Yoga retreats are a center for healing with the aim of doing just that.
Fresh, organic meals facilitate the process of physical detox and relaxing, natural settings coupled with yoga that flushes stress chemicals from muscles detoxes the body and mind. Meditation is often incorporated into yoga retreats, which is an excellent way to settle our often restless minds.

meet your tribe

One of the best benefits of a yoga retreat is the community you’ll be a part of co-creating. It’s often difficult to find a group of people in which you can be your authentic self, but that challenge melts away as soon as you start connecting with the yoga-loving folks around you.
People who go on a yoga retreat are automatically like-minded. They are open to self-exploration, practices of kindness towards self and others, and are committed to a practice that will make the world a better place.

enrich your off-mat relationships

The best way to improve any relationship is to start with improving the relationship with yourself. After an intensive yoga retreat, you will have learned ways of shedding self-limiting layers and opening up to others. Experience of the freedom that this vulnerability brings can remove barriers that often get in the way of our ability to reveal who we truly are to others.
By spending time to find new space in your life, you can also break free of negative old patterns that get in the way of intimacy. Retreats are a time to face your fears in a safe space and step into the courage necessary to engage in deep, meaningful connections.

What else do teachers say?

❝ A yoga retreat is for anyone who seeks inner or outer quietitude. In everyday life socialising and stillness seem to be mutally exclusive! But on a retreat they somehow exist in harmony… there are so many retreats to choose from that we can find just the right balance for our needs. Life is becoming increasingly noisy, the vibrations that we are conscious of and those that we absorb unconsciously; the opinions of those around us, internet and TV. All these impressions are absorbed and influence our state of mind and reactions to life.
On a yoga retreat your need for quiet can be respected and people are less likely to need to fill every available space with chatter. Being away from everyday expectations and practising day to day with people, we get to know them without sharing our life stories – on a heart to heart level. Practising silence can be a transformational experience – this might be a whole retreat in ‘mauna’, a speech-free day or one meal shared in silence. When we have external quiet like this we can start to empty our mind of its patterns and taste the inner quiet that is the essence of yoga. ❞

❝

The question should actually be, “who doesn’t need yoga retreats?”. With the stress of the 21^st century, I believed most people could benefit from a week or so to get lost in only themselves. It provides an avenue, away from ones typical day-to-day routine to completely rest and hit reset. Leaving your comfort zone to focus on you and only you would benefit everyone in my opinion, whether you are a mother of three or the CEO of Apple. Not to mention that retreats are typically held in beautiful locations around the world… you can’t really beat that! ❞

❝

It took me 10 years, but I finally signed up for a yoga retreat 2 years ago. Though the price of a retreat can be off-putting, it is 100% worth it. I went to Bromley, Jamaica with Prana flow instructor Sienna Creasy, and it was the adventure of a lifetime. I rode horses through the countryside, interacted and took yoga classes with the locals on a gorgeous platform, and swam in the clear blue ocean. I drank fresh coconut milk, ate homecooked vegetarian meals, and danced and practiced yoga with 25 other women.
Who needs yoga retreats? Everyone. Who wouldn’t want to wake up daily with a smile on your face, ready for coffee and fresh fruit, and practice yoga in a beautiful location? It is sometimes easy to remain complacent, simply driving through and working constantly, but honestly it is those adventures you take with family or friends, or even just for yourself, that will stick in your mind and heart forever. ❞

❝

Yoga retreats are the perfect opportunity to delve deeply into your practice in every way. You get to spend your days practicing yoga in all ways, shapes and forms. From practicing mindfulness while eating delicious home-cooked meals, to practicing presence by living in the moment in some beautiful, remote location to practicing gratitude by acknowledging how lucky you are to be there to physically practicing asana, typically twice or more per day…the whole environment of a retreat is about tuning in to yourself and living, breathing and practicing every aspect of yoga. To me, they are the perfect way to remove all the distractions of ‘every day life’ to focus entirely on being exactly where you are. Travel, relaxation, adventure and yoga all blend together to form the ideal getaway for anyone. ❞

Directions

BookYogaRetreats.com is one of the world’s best yoga travel companies. It offers 5000+ yoga retreats, holidays and trainings in 250+ destinations for all yogic tastes and budgets. Registered in the Netherlands, they have customer service in 7 countries.

BookRetreats.com: A small, young company located in Berkeley, California. They use all the advantages of a sharing economy and call themselves the “AirBnB of yoga”. They provide 250+ handpicked yoga retreats with real reviews by TripAdvisor available on their website.

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