Learning to breathe in Denmark

Times

25-04-2025

About 20km north of Copenhagen, splayed out on a yoga mat and listening to a quiet chorus of intentionally steady, guided breaths, I am overcome with the sense that I am about to experience something deeply uncomfortable. If only it was a flexibility-testing contortion. Instead, what's taking over my body are, oh God, feelings: rage, sorrow — and even chest-tightening anxiety.
I've come to Denmark's Kurhotel Skodsborg, which was once a seaside sanatorium, for its new hot and cold Nordisk Retreat. So why, barely an hour out of my swift chauffeured car from the airport and in a stretch designed to free up my hip flexors, am I close to tears?
'We hold a lot of emotion in our glutes and hips,' says Tamara Harnett, the British women's health and performance coach who is leading the retreat's restorative movement and breathwork workshop, before suggesting I lean into the pose further with a strong, eight-count exhale.
What follows is a surge of anger through my stomach and then … phew, relief. The tension dissipates and I enter the kind of zen calm I had hoped to experience over the weekend.
This is going to be, I have quickly discovered, no straightforward spa break. The questions posed by the Nordisk retreat, a contrast-therapy and breathwork-focused programme, are pretty rudimentary in principle. Do you think you can breathe properly? And, more to the point — are you using that rudimentary bodily function effectively, beyond just, well, keeping you alive?
Led by the pro rugby player turned breathwork influencer Richie Norton, the retreat combines two days of the Kurhotel's signature sauna treatments and standout wellness facilities (the vast spa is home to 16 kinds of state-of-the-art relaxation rooms from steam rooms to a salt cave and infrared chairs) with hands-on teaching and the practice of Norton's speciality: breathwork.
For those who have never done breathwork before, this getaway is a great place to start. Over four one-hour sessions (two a day, one in the morning and another in the afternoon) our group is exposed to how our breath can challenge us, be strengthened and help us to cope with adversity, as well as to switch off. It's all executed with a practical, and not overly spiritual, touch.
Norton's session is billed as strength training, but is held in a length pool rather than a gym. It is certainly not a water aerobics class, though. We practise holding our breath while swimming with hand weights underwater (exhausting but rewarding). Afterwards, Harnett's focus is yoga, restorative movement and flexibility — where you learn to breathe into those trickier stretches (as well as try to dislodge stress).
In between sessions, in the spa, we are led by Kurhotel sauna experts — or gusmesters — in their speciality: steam and sauna practices. The former is a treat. In a warm, misty room of around 45C, we are gently whisked with birch leaves and eucalyptus, then offered aromatic facial and body scrubs with sugar, coconut oil, lavender oil and aloe vera, all of which is absorbed into the skin with the help of the enveloping steam. (Yes, heavenly.)
The SaunaGus is a whole different ball game. In Denmark, these coal-heated wooden saunas are sacred and gusmesters are artists. In the 80C wooden box, one gusmester called Bo creates delicious-smelling steam by breaking tennis-ball-sized, scented ice chips on to the coals, then using a towel to whip hot waves of heat around us for 12 minutes. It's intense, but not as much as what follows — a dip in the outdoor plunge pool. I managed about 10 seconds in the 8C pool before taking myself, a little lightheaded, inside for a sit down and some warm tea. Then we did it all over again.
In an ideal world that nippy dip would have been taken in the sea via the Kurhotel's private pontoon. Alas, during our stay, weather warnings prohibited access. No matter — everything else at the 96-room property was up for grabs. Ample downtime between Nordisk workshops can be spent in fitness classes (I hit up the reformer Pilates studio), drinking hot chocolate in front of a fire in the lounge, enjoying the spa and its treatments, or taking walks or a run through the Dyrehaven nature reserve.
The hotel itself is 125 years old. Sometimes that shows — the decor can feel a little dated. But its unfussiness, when trying to unburden the mind and destress the body, is no bad thing. Most importantly, it is super comfortable. The best rooms are spacious, and come with a sea view, bathtub and very cosy beds. The service is also second to none. After realising I had lost a beloved bracelet in a dressing gown that had long been sent down to laundry, a concierge took it upon himself to find it and was, amazingly, successful.
The food was particularly good. I was hesitant about the 'sleep-optimised' dinner, but the delicate beetroot starter and cod main were delicious, and there was plenty of bread or wine for those who wanted it. I stuck with the local sparkling tea and still slept like a rock. Probably because I'd so thoroughly exorcised my hips.
Details Doubles at Kurhotel Skodsborg from DKK 2,045 (about £236) B&B, with access to the spa and fitness facilities and classes. The next retreat — in autumn 2025 — will cost from £496, including one night's accommodation