A chronic overthinker’s guide to doing nothing

I was in my dermatologist’s office earlier this year, this time about a new whey protein powder that had given me a body rash and seemed to worsen my already severe hair fall. I was going down my laundry list of symptoms when she cut me off. “Are you stressing a lot lately?” It felt like a trick question because, of course, yes I was. My relationship with stress has been my most reliable, long-term one. Her response was swift: “You need to reduce your cortisol levels. Otherwise, I won’t be able to treat your hair fall.”

It felt like a teacher’s warning: unless you improve your grades, you’ll never pass. Needless to say, I left her office with even more stress because how was I going to suddenly find a way to halt this stress train? Then the answer came: a timely invitation to visit Swastik Luxury Wellbeing, a holistic healing sanctuary in Pune.

They say the start of anything tends to determine the rest of the experience, so I took falling asleep within 20 minutes of my car ride from Mumbai to Pune, to be a very good sign. When I woke up from my nap to stop for a tea break, the backdrop had changed. From a jungle of dusty concrete, I now had the rolling hills of the Western Ghats to look upon, and an AQI of 2 to soak in.

By the time we got to Swastik, which is tucked into Peacock Valley and surrounded by the serene waters of Khadakwasla lake, all I could hear was rustling trees and raindrops landing on leaves. The silence felt strange (city people problems).

A cave for quiet contemplation

Opened in November 2024, Swastik brings ancient Vedic wellness traditions together with modern practices to offer city-weary folk like me reprieve and healing. They begin with a unique welcoming ritual: each guest is made to stand inside a giant singing bowl while someone strikes it to create a deep, resonant vibration. As I felt the reverberation, my brain made a quick decision (which is rare) to surrender to the process.

After a lengthy debrief about my lifestyle, medical history and personality traits, Dr Shanthi Ganga, their in-house expert in women’s health and lifestyle disorder management, put me on a programme aimed at reducing stress and improving focus. I was also handed a dinacharya or daily regimen, put together after a consultation with the resident Ayurvedic doctors.

All rooms at Swastik are cave-shaped, covered with ferns and grass on the outside, and meant to evoke the womb from the inside, and by the time I settled into my ‘guha’, I was famished. But instead of devolving instantly into a hangry 10-year-old, I somehow controlled myself and headed straight to my first meditation session.

When I finally walked into Rasa that evening, the dining space where every meal served is rooted in Ayurveda and naturopathy and features unprocessed, seasonal and locally sourced ingredients, I was ready to eat. I ended up ordering almost everything on the menu, including dal pakwaan, pumpkin soup and millet noodles. Since Swastik’s food philosophy revolves around mindful eating, the portions were intentionally small. I gobbled my palm-sized leafy-green salad, and ate the rest of the courses with a similar intensity. By the time I scooped up the last bite of coconut kheer, I felt completely sated. The long wait, the build-up of appetite, and the teasing portions, were all intentional, I realised.

I was all ready to hit the sack, but bedtime at Swastik looks a little different. Every guest experiences Swastik Nidra, where a therapist gives you a relaxing foot massage meant to improve sleep. I fell asleep almost instantly, and for the first time in months I woke up the next morning with the same energy Prem had in Main Prem Ki Diwani Hoon.

A wave of calm

I started day two with a 6 am Yin restorative yoga session at Dhyan Vihar, the sanctuary’s spiritual centre. I noticed a yoga mat with what looked like a pillow on it. I thought, are we just going to do savasana?

But as the instructor, Prabhat, guided me through each movement, I realised the idea was to gently release tension stored in the body and regulate the nervous system, with the pillow doubling as emotional support. And it worked! Later, as I walked through the sprawling property soaking in the views, it occurred to me that my constantly moving left leg (I call it my anxiety leg) had stopped bouncing

That morning I sat with my journal during breakfast and wrote about how I felt, pouring every emotion onto those pages. It genuinely felt like a huge rock had been lifted off my chest.

After more meditation, consultations and healthy meals, we arrived at the aerial yoga session, the part I’d been anticipating the most. I had never tried it before and had always been curious. The session began with gentle stretches using the aerial sling before moving on to poses like the Wide Seat Inversion, Butterfly and Crescent Lunge. As I hung by the piece of fabric in mid-air, contorting through these movements, it felt as if I had unlocked a new life achievement.

Singing in front of strangers was the final reset

I ended the day with karaoke (yes, this was part of Dr Ganga’s prescription), singing Pal Pal Dil Ke Paas in my not-so-good voice. It was a surprisingly good stress-buster, and I later found out that singing out loud slows and deepens your breathing and is known to release feel-good endorphins. Karaoke didn’t fit into my idea of a quiet wellness retreat but the release I felt definitely did.

As I prepared to return to regular life the next morning, I had a major realization: across these two days, I had repeatedly done what I had never been able to do before. I had turned off the mental radio and stayed in the moment, without worrying about what came next. That night I slept like a baby, feeling for the first time in a long while that I’d left my worries behind.