May 19, 2025
7 min read
DIY Self-Care Retreat: Your Winter Reset Starts Here
Feeling burned out and stressed? It might be time to book in some self-care. While booking in for a 3 day wellness retreat would be a dream come true for most of us, it’s often not realistic. With family and work commitments, most of us can’t find the time or the money to attend multi-day self-care events.
Thankfully, you can take a do-it-yourself approach by creating a meaningful wellness retreat at home, and what better time to get cosy with yourself at home than Winter!? With some careful planning and the right self-care products it is possible to achieve the healthy reset your body and mind have been craving.
Why is Self-Care so Important?
Self-Care, Detoxing, Mindfulness - these aren’t just trending topics on social media. Regularly taking time to check out of work and unplug from the online world to reconnect with our mind and body is a necessity for overall health and wellness. Taking the time to listen to what our mind and body needs and taking action on those feelings will help to ease stress, boost energy levels and improve your mood.
Whilst small things each day such as a 10 minute meditation or a walk in nature will help us get through the day, sometimes we need more time to reset - particularly in times of extreme stress. Creating an at-home retreat is a great way to reset and kick start ongoing self-care and healthy habits that will have a lasting effect on your mood, family and work life.
How to Set up a Wellness Retreat at Home
If you really want to benefit from an at-home wellness retreat it’s important to do a little pre-planning to ensure there are no interruptions. Choose a day or weekend where there are no plans, book it in your calendar and communicate with family and friends that you will be offline and unavailable on that day. It’s also important to set some goals - what are you wanting to achieve from the retreat? Will you be taking a holistic approach that includes mindfulness, rest, nutrition and fitness or will you be focusing on one of these areas?
Once you have locked in a date and set your goals, it’s time to plan ahead so that you can truely focus on you:
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Clean and declutter the house prior to the retreat day - you don’t want any distractions tempting you to stray from focusing on your wellbeing.
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Stock up on all food, drinks and personal care items that you may need so that you don’t have to interrupt your moment of self-care with a trip to the shops.
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Meal prep and plan ahead with nutritious meals and snacks that will benefit your health.
What to Include in your Self-Care Retreat
A self-care retreat doesn’t need to be boring. While moments of quiet, rest and meditation are essential for a reset, you can also incorporate activities that feed your soul.
Take some time to think about things that bring you joy such as:
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Cooking
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Walking in Nature
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Trying a new form of exercise
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Reading a Book
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Learning a musical instrument such as piano
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Painting
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Listening to Music
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Drawing and colouring
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Journaling
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Skin and Body Pampering
DIY Skin and Body Treatments
Booking into a spa for skin and body treatments is an ideal way to show your skin and body some self-care, however this may be too expensive for some. There are many natural skin treatments and tools now available for at-home use that may be a better long term investment as they can be used multiple times in the comfort of your own home. Follow our Ayurvedic Inspired skin and body routine below to bring comfort and glow to stressed winter skin.
DIY Organic Ayurvedic Body Treatments
Prior to showering reach for LAMAV’s Garshana Dry Body Brush. Using short strokes, begin at the feet and working your way towards the heart to exfoliate and detoxify the skin while improving circulation for smoother skin texture.
Next, warm LAMAV’s Nourish Ayurvedic Body Oil and complete our signature 5-10 minute Abhyanga Massage to relieve stressed muscles and encourage lymphatic drainage. Use flowing, firm strokes to focus on areas that are particularly tense and feel the stress melt away. You’ll not only be doing your muscles a favour, your skin will be left glowing thanks to the inclusion of nourishing oils and LAMAV’s Ayurvedic Wellness Blend.
Finish with a head massage and jump into a warm bath or shower to wash away impurities and excess oil.
Once showered, apply another light layer of your chosen Ayurvedic Body oil for extra winter skin nourishment and finish with a hand massage using LAMAV’s Vitamin C Hand Cream.
DIY Organic Winter Facial
Double Cleanse: Take the time to double cleanse while you have it, beginning with LAMAV’s Marula Oil Cleanser. This nourishing cleanser will melt away makeup, SPF and impurities without stripping the skin and is an ideal way to begin your facial with a 1-2 minute massage.
Exfoliate: LAMAV’s Jojoba Exfoliating Scrub is an ideal way to encourage cellular turnover without irritating the skin. Containing fruit derived AHA’s to break down dry, dull skin, along with essential fatty acids and soothing Aloe - your skin will be glowing and nourished.
Expert tip - exfoliate in gentle circular motions for one minute and leave on the skin for an additional minute before rinsing to allow the AHA’s to do their job.
Masking: Applying face masks is often not seen as a necessity, so a winter retreat is the perfect opportunity to treat your skin to some extra care. LAMAV’s Firming Treatment Mask is packed with bio-actives to visibly lift, tone and boost skin elasticity and won’t leave the skin feeling tight or irritated. Grab a green tea or take the opportunity to lay down and close your eyes for 10 minutes while the mask sets.
Apply Skincare: For most of us, applying skincare is as routine as brushing our teeth. A retreat is the perfect time to be a little more intentional with what we are applying to our skin and embracing the experience as we do it. For winter, choose to layer hydrating boosting skincare to nourish and lock in moisture. We recommend starting with our Bakuchiol Booster, followed by our Hyaluronic Hydra-Max Serum and LAMAV’s Hyaluronic Moisture Cream or Omega Antioxidant Oil.
Kansa Wand Facial Massage: A facial wouldn’t be complete without a facial massage. LAMAV’s Ayurvedic Kansa wand works synergistically with our bio-active rich facial oils to rebalance and restore your Dosha while improving lymphatic drainage and revitalise tired, stressed skin.
Pro tip: run the Kansa wand in a figure-eight movement from the centre of the brows, around and under the eye area for a blissful and tension relieving eye and temple massage.
Finishing Touches: Remove excess oil from your facial massage and apply LAMAV’s Intense Repair Eye Balm and Beauty Sleep Mask to lock in hydration and skin loving nutrients. Trust us - you’ll wake up with plump, smooth and glowing skin!
Sleep
While taking time for a retreat is great, one of the most important things we can do to support our physical health, mental health and immunity is getting enough high quality sleep on a regular basis. A retreat is the perfect opportunity to take the time to create healthy pre-sleep and bedtime habits that you can continue on a daily basis to ensure you get the shut eye that your mind and body is craving.
Mindfulness and Stress Management
If you’re someone who struggles to incorporate meditation or mindfulness into your daily routine, now is the ideal time to implement this healthy habit. To better manage the daily stress of life, try to start each morning or finish each day with a short meditation to quiet the mind. Meditation takes some practice and it’s important not to be hard on yourself if you can’t switch off straight away. It can take some time to break a busy mind and unhealthy thought patterns so be kind to yourself and maintain this daily ritual as best as you can to reap the rewards.
Creating a wellness retreat doesn’t have to be expensive or time consuming. Making space in your calendar to invest one day into your health and wellness will leave you feeling emotionally balanced, boost your energy and bring you some calm from daily chaos.
