Are you in need of a health reset? These spas can help

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a day ago

Sometimes a long weekend full of lazy lie-ins is all you need to feel well rested and rebooted. But, once in a while, treating yourself to a week-long health retreat, preferably with a picturesque backdrop and luxurious facilities, is required to feel truly reset. If you can spare the holiday, here are four that offer impressive results when it comes to sending you home feeling and looking a whole lot healthier.
With all the best will in the world, it can be tricky to make big changes to your diet when you're surrounded by temptations at home, so taking yourself for a gut reset at a clinic is a great way to initiate true change. The Original Mayr Medical Resort opened in 1976 and for almost 50 years has treated visitors with the Mayr cure. This is a programme that involves alkaline foods, lots of chewing, lower calories and fasting, alongside medical appointments, treatments and movement. A week in the historic and luxurious Austrian clinic allows your digestive systems — and your brain — to relax, de-stress and reset.
Recently it realigned one of its programmes to hone in on gut health. It provides stool, urine and breath testing, allergy testing and ultrasounds (you can add a colonoscopy if your doctor thinks it necessary). Your meals will be 'gut friendly' (with nothing inflammatory or tricky to digest) and treatments will be orientated towards gut issues, including colonic hydrotherapy and abdominal massages to move things along. There will also be a focus on stress (which is proven to slow digestion and disrupt gut bacteria), so wellbeing coaching with the in-house psychotherapist, plus soothing therapies such as shiatsu, are also recommended.
A week at the clinic (or two if you're feeling brave) can facilitate an impressive amount of immediate change, and it can also be a useful fact-finding mission. The lead doctor, Dr Ursula Muntean-Rock, is trained in general medicine but also passionate about holistic healing (she spent many years training in traditional Chinese medicine in China). She is well placed to assess all of your results to form a lifestyle plan to keep up the good gut work and, hopefully, keep the bloating and blockages at bay.
Original Mayr Medical Resort seven-day Detox and Gut Health programme, from £4043. Includes programme, meals and accommodation in single room. original-mayr.com
Situated at the northern point of the German island of Sylt (their version of the Hamptons, according to many) and in a building that looks like a Bond villain's lair, Lanserhof Sylt is a clinic synonymous with medical excellence. The medical programme here is not predetermined, but a bespoke itinerary is compiled — after diagnostics, examinations and lots and lots of questions. This makes it a great choice for those without specific ailments but who just want to feel (and look) better. 'People often come here who aren't ill by definition but have things they can't put their finger on,' says the chief marketing officer, Nils Behrens. 'On a scale of one to ten for 'health', most people arrive saying they feel around five to seven. We want them to leave feeling as close to ten as possible.'
Inside the 50,000 sq ft medical clinic are ten full-time doctors, with 32 further specialists (from physiotherapists and hypnotherapists to facialists and acupuncturists). There's even a cardiologist and gastrologist, for more serious medical complaints that might come up via testing. The testing itself could include a full-body scan using 96 cameras and AI, a liver fat scan, or a more familiar ECG. Your programme will likely combine medical treatments with natural or alternative practices such as craniosacral therapy.
The food is also tailored to your plan and goals. It can be a measly 400 calories per day if called for (which might mean a cup of nut milk and rice cake to start your day) or bulked up with lots of in season fruit, vegetables and meat to create nutritious and filling meals. Walking or cycling around the shores of the island feels like it's doing good things for you too, especially in the spring and early summer, when wild roses grow bountifully in hedgerows, their heady scent mingling with sea salt. It's just one of the many resources you can tap at Lanserhof to work your way to better health, and hopefully have you heading home feeling ten out of ten.
Seven to eight nights at Lanserhof Sylt in theLanserhof Cure Classic exclusive accommodation starts from 2,980 EUR, lanserhof.com
Being such a buzzword in wellness, most clinics will now have a programme dedicated to 'longevity'. But at SHA it's the reason it exists. The founder, Alfredo Bataller Parietti, opened his first SHA property in rural Spain as a place for guests to experience the integrative medicine and healing nutrition that helped with his own health issues (including a cancer diagnosis). More than 15 years later he — and SHA — are still going strong.
Cancun — the Mexican city famous for its vibrant party scene — might not seem the obvious choice for the group's second property, opened in 2024. But just a short drive from the airport down the Riviera Maya you'll find the most zen beachfront, Costa Mujeres, where the impressive SHA Wellness building (designed by local architects, the design is based on the shape of a DNA strand) ripples elegantly along the shoreline, with ocean views on one side and green fields of mangroves on the other.
Against the backdrop of rolling waves and tropical birds, longevity takes centre stage via diet and treatments focused on living a healthier, happier life for longer. There are lessons in a more sustainable way of healthy living, with an emphasis on your emotional wellbeing alongside the physical. Leaving SHA you should feel refocused, relaxed and re-energised.
Your first few appointments will be focussed on fact-finding: biometric readings of your body composition, blood tests, doctor-led consultations, a cognitive assessment and stress-level measurement, for example. The results of these will be used to personalise your programme. There's a seemingly endless range of ways your time could be filled: body therapies such as targeted massages and detox wraps, personal training sessions, medical treatments, cosmetic appointments such as facials, exercise classes or guided meditation. There are also cooking classes on offer, alternative therapies like shiatsu, reflexology and acupuncture, or just wallowing and reviving in the hydrotherapy area or outdoor pools… The list goes on.
However, the people you'll perhaps be most thankful for during your stay are the team of chefs, led by the charming Lixi Lineas from France. The food at SHA is famously delicious, which might come as a surprise if you've ever been to a detox retreat that is more broth-and-potato focused. From baked polenta with mushrooms and tom yum sauce to vegan 'tuna' (made from chickpeas and cleverly deployed seaweed). There's even puddings, some of which include chocolate.
Rates at SHA Mexico start from $2,700 for a four-day Recover & Energise programme. For more information, please visit shawellness.com
The little sister of the grand Bürgenstock hotel — a glamorous, brutalist showstopper — Waldhotel is, by contrast, quiet, refined and discreet. Part private medical centre, part five-star spa hotel, everything about the building welcomes in the surroundings. These include the structure's larch-latticed exterior and the decks where guests lie, soaking in the mountain scenery and inhaling the scents of rosemary, forests and farmyards.
Inside it's all Swiss efficiency and charm. Conceived as Switzerland's leading private medi-spa, where ill or injured patients check in for rehabilitation or recovery, it has a medical facility with 23 specially equipped bedrooms for postoperative recovery and gyms fitted with high-tech rehabilitation and fitness equipment. Above this centre are 137 hotel rooms and suites, an enormous, light-filled stone-and-wood spa, plus a dentist and aesthetics area, should you want a top-up of your injectables while you're there.
Though you could check in for a bog-standard health retreat, this is really built for initiating significant improvements. In one day you could have (deep breath…) three blood tests, a consultation with a doctor, an abdominal ultrasound, a session with a nutritionist, a head-to-toe examination and precancerous cell removal by a dermatologist, and a mobility test and PT session. All before lights out at 7.30pm.
What really stands out here is high-spec technology. If you have lung or breathing issues, for example, there is a contraption that involves you standing in a glass box, connected to monitors that measure not only the power of your lungs but the concentration of gases you're exhaling. There's an ECG test connected to an exercise bike and a Dexa machine that scans your body for the exact make-up of (healthy) bones, (good) muscle and (excess) fat. Essentially, if there is an ailment hidden somewhere, it's going to have trouble staying hidden here.
Treatments will be personalised to help get you back to peak health. They could equally be high-tech or may simply harness the serene surroundings, such as breathing exercises to the backdrop of tinkling cowbells or mindful mountain treks. The team of doctors and therapists will do their best to put you right in the time they have, sending you home more knowledgeable, well rested and healed — or at least on the right track.
POA, burgenstockresort.com