Desperately Seeking Shut-Eye

Get to the root of bedtime woes with the Sleep Enhancement programme at Kamalaya Koh Samui

- Stephanie Shiu

I arrive a little broken. A hectic month of travel, looming work, lunchtime gym sessions and dinners wedged in between, has finally caught up to me. My flat, above Hong Kong’s bar district, can sound like a thumping club on weekends… hardly conducive to a good night’s rest, and I have a stinking cold to show for all of this. Thankfully I have come to the perfect place to come undone — Kamalaya Koh Samui, in all its swaying-palm tranquillity.

The award-winning sanctuary is one of the places in Asia for a wellness reboot, with its inspired retreats, fantastic fare and healing therapies drawing from East and West in a sublime tropical setting. I am here to try the five-night Sleep Enhancement programme (seven or nine nights are also an option), which begins with a bioimpedence analysis, to provide an estimate of body fat and muscle mass composition.

I’m almost instantly comatose when the nurse asks me to lie down to take my blood pressure. How embarrassing. I’m more rundown than I realise, I guess this trip couldn’t have come at a better time. The programme aims to re-establish healthy sleep by addressing issues and imbalances that affect its quality, using naturopathy, traditional Chinese medicine, massage and mind-body balance sessions. Designed to be therapeutic and preventative, acupuncture and foot massage are included, designed to ease stress and ramp up health overall.

DAY 1