During the welcome session we are asked to share our intentions for the next few days. “Survive without caffeine?” I joke. I am sitting with a group of nine others (four practitioners and six guests, including myself) on the wide verandah of a farmhouse. We’re spread across giant couches and rattan chairs, sipping pomegranate juice, overlooking the distant Tsitsikamma Mountains outside Plettenberg Bay, a one hour flight (followed by a 1.5 hour drive) from Cape Town. It’s overwhelmingly peaceful; the kind of place that encourages you to immediately grind to a halt.

Everyone around me laughs, but I’m being serious. Five days without real coffee–suffering through brain fog and debilitating headaches knowing very well that I’ll drink it again–feels like a punishment. Counterintuitive even, like pouring hours into learning how to ride a bike and then deciding you’d rather walk after all.

I know why they remove it: caffeine can cause acid reflux. It’s also a stimulant that can make me feel ‘zingy,’ and the aim of this five-night experience is to do the opposite. “We’re trying to get you to be as calm as possible in your parasympathetic nervous system [the network of nerves that promotes relaxation],” says Nicola Whiteman, a medical doctor and founder of Oppidum Health Retreat, a personalized gut repair program and wellness retreat. “That way, you can really access how you’re feeling.”

The programming at Oppidum, which takes place on a private nature reserve along a quiet road that leads into the mountains, starts with an intention. “Very rarely do we stop and ask ourselves: What do we want for ourselves and how do we want to feel?” says Whiteman. The aim is to coax you into a calm state, but also to heal the gut. The two go hand-in-hand after all. “Your gut has an effect on your brain, but your brain also has an effect on your gut,” she explains. Considering your stomach is where a large percentage of dopamine, serotonin and gaba is produced (which regulates your mood and promotes sleep) and where 70–80% of the body’s immune cells are located, it’s a decent place to start. “You also produce so many neurotransmitters in your gut,” says Whiteman, who notes that stress paralyzes the gut and therefore shuts down our digestion. “Balancing your hormones, repairing, detoxifying—all of that doesn’t happen [when you’re in a fight or flight state].” While a little bit of stress—like being nervous before a test—can be good, living in a cycle of it is not. “We’re not supposed to be in this constant distressed state, [riddled] with anxiety, where we are unable to process emotions and regulate, ” she adds.

It begins with an elimination diet, an eating plan that cuts out all the main culprits: caffeine, alcohol, gluten, dairy, and sugar. Things I like very much. But it also boosts foods that are good for the gut: an array of plants, kimchi, and bone broth. “We also want to diversify the gut flora,” says Whiteman, describing the microbiome like a rainforest, which contains multiple species that live in harmony. Whiteman still considers this diet the best way to rule out food sensitivities and also give the gut a chance to rest and heal its lining. After putting many of her patients on the diet (during one-on-one sessions at her practice in Plettenberg Bay), she quickly found that doing it in isolation doesn’t have the same reward. “It’s not as beneficial if you don’t [also] regulate your nervous system,” she says. “The mental health aspect is almost more important. We have to work on both.”