What Is Normal?
What a cultish wellness retreat and inpatient hospital program have in common.
“Trust your body,” the instructor says as each person submerges their body into an aluminum bathtub filled with ice water. “Mind over matter,” we echo when we see each face tense up in response to the temperature shock. After a couple minutes, they rise from the ice, skin discoloured, and join the other bathers restoring their circulation by squatting in a circle and thrusting their arms in a synchronized rhythm. With each inhale and exhale they grunt in unison. Every morning, I awake to the sound of pulsing music and look out the window of my colonial villa to see them practicing this cold exposure therapy—known as the Wim Hof Method—in the leafy courtyard below.
A year ago this week, I was in Mexico reporting on this new wellness retreat designed for remote workers. I shouldn’t call it a “retreat,” they’d prefer I call it a “stress-free productivity paradise.” In reality, it was a week-long crash course in self-optimization: we learned techniques for building “heal…