I’ve attended a handful of wellness retreats over the years. I love the idea of dedicated time to take a break, pause, check in, disconnect and recharge. These types of circuit breakers are not the answer to a balanced life overall, but they are incredibly restorative.
Wellness tourism as an industry is expanding exponentially. More and more, people are willing to dedicate money and precious annual leave to their physical, spiritual and emotional wellbeing. This can look like yoga, breath work, massage, personal training, acupuncture… It can also look like screaming into the woods.
The latter is part of an uptick in rage retreats – a kind of wellness offering dedicated to experiential forms of emotional release, specifically rage and anger.
Rage retreats vary in what they offer and to whom, but the idea has mostly resonated with women. It makes sense. Since the dawn of time, women have been conditioned that the most acceptable display of anger is none at all. Instead, we’re taught to be pleasant, patient, quiet. Wellness, an industry that’s tried to sell us a regulated nervous system for years via intentional mindfulness and inner ‘calm’, is now perhaps turning the other way.
The concept of a rage retreat is exactly what it sounds like. Within a wellness setting, guests are encouraged to scream, beat sticks, write, yell, smash objects – basically any intentional practice or activity that encourages the release of otherwise pent-up emotion in an organised way.
It’s not exactly a modern practice. Business of Fashion, who reported on the topic, made a point that the women of ancient Greece used to retreat to the woods together to scream in unison as a way to detach from their restricted lives. The idea of a monetised retreat however, is. Emotional release has become a focus point for a lot of existing luxurious wellness offerings around the world – Gwinganna for instance puts importance on stress recovery for women, whereas leading Bangkok retreat RAKxa offers a women’s health integrative program with the goal of improving emotional vitality.
Some offerings are more pointed, like internet viral Mia Magik, who regularly hosts Rage Rituals that costs thousands (and according to the internet, are really popular). On the less expensive side, backyard smash parties hosted at home (that usually involve fruit and hammers, or ceramics and protective gear) are gaining traction. Like the 2026 iteration of your parent’s Tupperwear party.
Like much of the wellness industry, most of this isn’t grounded in science, but that doesn’t mean its not valuable for some. For starters, women have a lot to be angry about. There’s the mental load, gender pay gaps, inflation, political debates about our bodies (that don’t involve us) and an incessant stream of horrific targeted violence. Things feel incredibly heavy and helpless. It’s unsurprising women are angry, even less so they’re looking for places to release it in a cathartic way. There’s also the element of community; screaming into the void when we’re alone can feel taboo, but in a natural setting in the company of likeminded women? Less so.
So would you spend your days off in a dedicated fit of rage? Releasing pent up frustration? Unblocking a throat chakra after years of suppressing how you really feel? Sounds a little confronting, but if current trends are anything to go by, we might.
Images: @bellahadid, Hulu
