Destination Balance

On the verge of executive shutdown, beauty director Alli Sim travels to The Ritz-Carlton Maldives, Fari Islands to reset and discover another rhythm.

Sometimes, you need someone to tell you to do less." coos Bamford's Jasmine St Cliere to an intimate group of journalists, including myself. We're somewhere in the Indian Ocean, safely ensconced in The Ritz Carlton Maldives' spa suite, lying on mattresses in her group breathwork class. This, including intimate yin yoga sessions alongside gua sha and sound bath workshops are all par for the course at The Ritz Carlton Maldives Essence of Balance wellness programme.

The conscious breathwork class led by St Cliere, a London-based movement, breath and sound specialist, is an invitation to shift and release repressed emotions that are stuck in the body. If anything is going to lovingly nudge me out of this torpor, it's peer pressure of the gentlest kind-there is something to be said about the accountability that group work brings.

Time to put the phone on airplane mode and connect with myself instead.

As we allow the debris of life to wash over us, curious sensations take hold: my body feels as if it's been set alight and sedated all at once. An editor to my left weeps softly, while a few bodies down, someone is snoring with blissful abandon.

In this safe space, there is no 'right or wrong' reaction as the conscious breath rebirths and brings us to a place of drive or relaxation. Breathwork can take place in any location, but when it's in the ultra-luxe Ritz Carlton Maldives, Fari Islands, the body is extra motivated to heal.

Jewel of the Maldives