Important Notice:
LifeSpa is no longer offering Panchakarma retreats. We may be offering a new and improved version of Panchakarma in the future.
Learn more, or sign up to be the first to know about the new retreats.
We’re not currently offering PK retreats, so here are some resources in the meantime:
How to do Panchakarma At Home
and
How to Choose a Panchakarma Retreat Center
Panchakarma Detox Retreats [on Hiatus]
Panchakarma is a series of detoxifying, balancing, and nourishing therapies performed over a series of 3, 5, 7 or more days. Panchakarma is not just a detox program. This is only its side benefit. It is a Transformation in Consciousness and replacing stress with silence.
During your Panchakarma you will receive Ayurvedic spa treatments every day with one or two therapists.You will also meet privately with Dr. Douillard regularly to unravel old emotions, beliefs, habits, and patterns that contribute to the stress which is typically the under-lying cause of most disease.
Each day during your free time you will enjoy a customized practice of rejuvenative yoga postures, breathing techniques, meditation and self-inquiry, along with a special cleansing diet and herbal support.We will send you home with a maintenance plan of herbs, yoga routines, dietary recommendations and stress relief techniques all tailored to your unique needs and goals.
“Panchakarma at LifeSpa was absolutely life-changing and transformative. Through all the treatments, yoga, and breathing, meditation, and talking with John, I feel my body and soul are restored at many different levels.I feel like a new person.I have never seen my body so lean and my heart so calm and clear.”~ A.Y., May 2010
Our patients travel from around the world to benefit from our unique approach to Panchakarma. As Dr. Douillard has lead thousands of people on Panchakarma since 1987, he has developed techniques to support you in the most profound detox and healing possible. At LifeSpa, you will benefit from one-on-one personalized time with Dr. Douillard, rather than just a few minutes with an assistant.
In modern times, it has been too common for practitioners here and even in India to treat Panchakarma as an opportunity only for physical detox. Panchakarma’s original purpose was to also release old emotions and patterns of behavior so that the patient could live from their true non-changing Self to lead an open-hearted, healthy life.
>>>Read the article in Yoga Journal magazine which quotes Dr. Douillard.
A Personalized Retreat
Our patients come for 3-21 day rejuvenation and detox retreats.Traditionally, 7 days or more of Panchakarma creates a deep physical, mental and emotional transformation.
A 3-5 day retreat is often more than enough to completely reset your nervous system and lymphatic system and to relish in the cleansing and nourishing benefits of Panchakarma.
Based on your specific needs and goals, Dr. Douillard will custom-tailor your Panchakarma Retreat for you including:
- Panchakarma Treatments
- Special Diet
- Ayurvedic Yoga
- Ayurvedic Psychology
- Meditation Instruction
- Pranayama (breathing techniques)
- Self-Inquiry
- Herbal Medicine
- Structured Therapies
- Exercise
Before Panchakarma:Home Preparation
One week before your Panchakarma start date you will do Oleation, which is a 7-day cleanse designed to reset digestion, boost fat metabolism, and detoxify your lymphatic system. In general, you will wake up each morning and drink a prescribed amount of melted ghee and follow a non-fat diet the rest of the day.We will provide you with details and recipes.
This program pulls toxins to your lymphatic system and helps your body enter fat metabolism mode, which means that you can begin burning fat cells where the majority of our toxins and molecules of emotions stagnate.
On the evening before you start your Panchakarma, you will take a laxative to expel some of the accumulated toxins.
Most patients find that this home preparation is easy to follow and continue with normal life and work activities.
A Typical Day During a LifeSpa Panchakarma Retreat
Though each guest’s schedule is different, a typical day may look like this:
Upon waking, you follow Dr. Douillard’s personalized prescription of yoga, breathing, meditation, self-inquiry and journaling, which he will prescribe to you as a Round.Each Round takes about an hour to do and your goal will be to do 3-5 Rounds each day.These practices facilitate deep calm, expansion and vitality.
As Dr. Douillard has also recommended specific self-inquiry and journaling exercises to help you release old patterns, behaviors and emotions, you spend some time in reflection.
Before lunch you do another Round, and dive even deeper into stillness.
Your detoxifying lunch of kitchari is delivered to LifeSpa or your room at the LookOut Inn, whichever is most comfortable for you.
After lunch, enjoy a refreshing 5 minute stroll to our clinic to meet with Dr. Douillard for a private one hour session.He will talk to you about your health goals, prescribe herbs, lifestyle techniques or diet as needed and use his years of experience in Ayurvedic Psychology and self-inquiry to help you fully release and transform old emotions and patterns of behavior.
After your consult, relax on the table in one of our peaceful treatment rooms to be nourished by our compassionate and experienced Panchakarma therapists.Today you receive a Royal Panchakarma, which is two hours of 3-4 therapies with two of our therapists.On this day you delight in a synchronized, 4-handed Udvartana massage with warm herbalized paste that leaves your skin soft and helps heal your lymphatic system, an herbalized steam to release toxins and shirodhara (warm oil poured on the forehead) to bring you into a state of deep, quiet bliss.After floating home, you savor a light meal, meditate serenely, and then drift into sleep.
Inner Safari
We have found that private retreats are more beneficial than group retreats as Panchakarma requires a deep turning inward towards the core of yourself.Rather than be distracted by other students in the dining hall and the meditation or yoga class generically designed for everyone or feeling obligated to socialize, Dr. Douillard prescribes a specific plan just for you that you do on your own in your room.
In the privacy of your own practice, you can more clearly see your places of resistance, expand into deep peace and return to your true core.Strengthening a personal practice eases your transition back into your real life, as you can maintain balance with stress relief techniques without needing a teacher to motivate and guide you.
Dr. Douillard emphasizes that you truly retreat by maintaining silence, keeping books closed, the TV, computer and radio turned off and refrain from all other distractions such as work and family.
Our Patients
All types of people come to our clinic for healing and rejuvenation – some patients have never followed a holistic eating plan, meditated or tried yoga – and some have done many years of other cleansing programs and spiritual techniques.Some patients are already very healthy, and some are struggling with difficult acute conditions.
If you are new to Ayurveda or holistic health, Dr. Douillard will gently guide you in a way that makes all this new knowledge joyful and easy to implement.If you are suffering from difficult health conditions, Dr. Douillard’s knowledge and experience of allopathic medicine will safely guide you.
If you have been meditating and eating healthy for many years, our LifeSpa retreat will help you release toxins and old molecules of emotion on a cellular level, rather than just a mental or energetic level.Those patients who feel they have already done a lot of work on themselves finally experience the benefits they had hoped to gain from their previous years of self-care.
Home Panchakarma
Ayurveda recommends that we cleanse seasonally.As many of us cannot do Panchakarma four times a year, I also offer these two options that you can easily do at home:
- Free 4-Day Short Home Cleanse:This is a shorter version of the Oleation (home prep pre-cleanse) that patients do the week before their Panchakarmas. You will feel calm and stable while flushing toxins and old molecules of emotion.
- Colorado Cleanse:A 2 week detox and digestion boot camp that you do at home.You can join us each spring and fall for our Group Colorado Cleanse, or do the Anytime Colorado Cleanse whenever you wish.
