No Very Spicy Foods
Spicy foods can significantly irritate the digestive system, which becomes particularly sensitive following Ayahuasca ceremonies. This heightened sensitivity may lead to discomfort, including stomach cramps, acid reflux, or diarrhea. By avoiding spicy ingredients such as chili, pepper, or garlic, you support your body's recovery process, allowing the digestive system to stabilize and preventing adverse reactions that might disrupt the integration period.

Fermented Products
Fermented foods, such as cheese, sauerkraut, soy sauce, and certain pickles, contain high levels of tyramine. When combined with MAOIs (monoamine oxidase inhibitors) present in Ayahuasca, tyramine can pose a risk of hypertensive crises—severe spikes in blood pressure. Abstaining from fermented foods during this time minimizes cardiovascular strain and ensures safety during the integration period.

Traditional Recommendations
In traditional practices, certain foods are believed to carry energies that may interfere with the subtle processes initiated by Ayahuasca. Avoiding these foods for 14 days helps maintain mental and emotional clarity, fostering alignment with the transformative journey.

Pork
Pork is considered to have a dense energy that may disrupt the subtle balance required for deeper introspection and self-awareness.

Onions and Garlic
In many spiritual traditions, onions and garlic are thought to have grounding properties that can cloud inner clarity. They are believed to generate energetic vibrations that may hinder a receptive, open state of mind. Avoiding these foods helps cultivate a lighter and more aligned energy, supporting a state of enhanced awareness and presence during the integration phase.

Sugar
Reintroducing sugar gradually is crucial as Ayahuasca ceremonies often reset and cleanse the body’s system, leaving it highly sensitive to substances that create spikes in blood glucose. A sudden intake of sugar can disrupt energy levels, causing rapid blood sugar fluctuations, leading to fatigue, irritability, or mood swings. It is best to start with natural sugars, such as fruits, to gently acclimate the body to sweetness without overwhelming it.

Red Meat
Red meat is dense and takes longer to digest, placing significant demand on the digestive system. After Ayahuasca, the body may need a break from heavy proteins to continue detoxifying and integrating the spiritual and physical experiences. Gradually reintroducing red meat allows the digestive enzymes to adapt and ensures the body can handle the complexity of red meat without adverse effects such as sluggishness or bloating.

Dairy
Dairy products, such as milk, yogurt and butter, can be inflammatory and difficult to digest for many people. After Ayahuasca, the gut may be more sensitive, and dairy can exacerbate issues like bloating, mucus production, or discomfort. Reintroducing dairy slowly ensures the body can assess its tolerance and avoid unnecessary irritation during the recovery phase.

Abstaining from sexual activity for at least 2 weeks after an Ayahuasca ceremony is essential to fully honor the healing process, maintain energetic balance, and integrate the deep insights gained during the experience.

Reasons for Abstinence:

Energy Conservation:
The Ayahuasca process is profoundly transformative and requires your body and mind to conserve energy for healing and integration. Sexual activity can deplete the energy needed to support these processes.

Maintaining Energetic Purity:
Ayahuasca ceremonies often open or cleanse your energetic field. Sexual activity introduces external energies that may disrupt this delicate state, making it harder to maintain focus on your inner journey.

Emotional Vulnerability:
After the ceremony, individuals are often more emotionally open and sensitive. Intimate relationships during this time can amplify emotional complexities, making it harder to process personal insights and emotions.

Distraction from Integration:
The post-ceremony period is a sacred time for reflecting on and integrating the lessons gained. Sexual activity can act as a distraction, diverting focus from self-exploration and hindering the depth of your healing.

Traditional Respect:
Many indigenous traditions, including the Shipibo-Conibo, view the post-ceremony period as sacred. Abstaining from sexual activity honors the plant’s teachings, the tradition, and the spiritual journey you’ve embarked on.
By refraining from sexual activity for at least 2 weeks, you create space for emotional, physical, and spiritual healing to take root, maximizing the long-term benefits of your Ayahuasca experience.

Stimulants such as coffee, heavily brewed tea, energy drinks, cigarets or certain herbal supplements (like ginseng or guarana) should be avoided after Ayahuasca for several reasons:

Nervous System Recovery: Ayahuasca ceremonies place a significant demand on the nervous system as they often involve deep emotional releases, intense visions, and physical detoxification. Stimulants increase the activity of the nervous system, leading to restlessness, increased heart rate, and heightened sensitivity, which can counteract the calming and grounding effects needed during the integration period.

Sleep and Rest: Sleep is a critical component of post-Ayahuasca recovery, allowing the body and mind to process the experiences and insights gained during the ceremony. Stimulants disrupt sleep cycles, which can result in insomnia, fatigue, and impaired emotional regulation—hindering the integration process.

Interaction with MAOIs: Ayahuasca contains MAOIs that alter the way certain compounds are metabolized in the body. Stimulants can react unpredictably with MAOIs, causing nausea, heart palpitations, headaches, or increased anxiety. This interaction can be particularly unsafe for individuals with underlying health conditions.

Gastrointestinal Sensitivity: Ayahuasca cleanses the digestive system, often leaving it more sensitive in the days following the ceremony. Stimulants like caffeine can irritate the stomach lining, leading to discomfort or gastrointestinal distress, further straining the body during its recovery phase.

Spiritual Clarity: Beyond the physical effects, stimulants can cloud your ability to reflect on and integrate the spiritual and emotional lessons of Ayahuasca. They can create a sense of artificial energy or distraction, pulling you away from the grounded and mindful state needed to fully absorb the medicine's teachings.

By avoiding stimulants, you create an environment of balance and calmness within your body and mind, maximizing the potential of the Ayahuasca experience. Instead, focus on nourishing the body with hydrating beverages like herbal teas and supporting the mind with meditation, journaling, or gentle walks in nature.

To ensure a safe and meaningful integration process after an Ayahuasca ceremony, it is essential to avoid certain substances for specified periods. The timelines and reasons differ depending on the type of substance.

Avoiding Certain Medical Drugs
Abstinence Period: 1 Month
it’s recommended to avoid certain medications, especially antidepressants (SSRIs, MAOIs), sedatives, or stimulants, for at least one month unless prescribed or supervised by a physician. In case you have a doubt, contact your retreat center and consult with a qualified healthcare professional.

Why This is Important:

Chemical Interactions: Medications, particularly those affecting serotonin levels, can dangerously interact with Ayahuasca’s compounds (MAOIs), even after the ceremony.
Integration: Allowing a medication-free period helps your body and mind integrate the experience from Ayahuasca without chemical interference.
Sensitivity Management: Your system remains heightened post-ceremony, and medications can feel more potent than usual, potentially causing side effects.

Recommendation: Work closely with your center and doctor to create a safe plan, particularly if avoiding medications isn’t feasible due to health conditions.

Avoiding Recreational Drugs, Plant Medicines, and Psychoactive Substances
Abstinence Period: 2.5-3 Months
This includes cannabis, psilocybin (magic mushrooms), cocaine, MDMA, amphetamines, opiates, and other plant medicines. Refrain from consuming these substances for at least 2-3 months after your ceremony to protect and enhance your healing process.

Why This is Important:

Chemical Interactions: Substances like cannabis or psychedelics can interact with lingering effects of Ayahuasca, leading to physical and emotional discomfort or adverse reactions.
Prolonged and Distorted Effects: Other substances can amplify or distort the lingering effects of Ayahuasca, making you feel ungrounded or confused.
Emotional and Mental Stability: Psychoactive substances disrupt the emotional clarity and mental processing that Ayahuasca initiates, delaying or blocking healing.
Heightened Sensitivity: Post-ceremony, your body and mind are more sensitive, which can lead to stronger-than-expected reactions, even to substances you’ve used previously.
Respecting the Healing Process: The time after an Ayahuasca ceremony is sacred and requires intentional care. Abstinence demonstrates respect for your healing journey and the plant’s teachings.

Summary of Timelines;

Medical Drugs: Avoid for 1 month unless necessary for a medical condition..
Recreational Drugs and Plant Medicines: Avoid for 2,5-3 months to maintain clarity, stability, and integration.

By following these guidelines, you honor your healing process and ensure the lessons from Ayahuasca have the space and clarity to unfold fully in your life.

Alcohol consumption is strongly discouraged for at least two weeks following an Ayahuasca ceremony. This abstinence allows the profound physical, emotional, and spiritual processes initiated by Ayahuasca to fully integrate without interference.

Reasons for Avoidance:

Supporting Continued Transformation:
The effects of Ayahuasca extend far beyond the ceremony itself, initiating a deep and ongoing process of personal transformation. Alcohol can disrupt this delicate process by dulling awareness and inhibiting the unfolding of insights gained during the experience. By abstaining, you give yourself the best chance to maintain the momentum of this inner work.

Impact on the Central Nervous System (CNS):
Both Ayahuasca and alcohol influence the central nervous system, though in very different ways. Ayahuasca opens pathways for transformation, sensitivity, and clarity, while alcohol acts as a depressant. Consuming alcohol shortly after Ayahuasca can overwhelm the CNS, leading to fatigue, confusion, or even physical discomfort, counteracting the positive effects of the ceremony.

Preserving Mental Clarity:
One of Ayahuasca’s primary benefits is the heightened mental clarity it brings, often enabling deep introspection and self-awareness. Alcohol clouds the mind, suppresses emotional processing, and can diminish the clarity needed to fully integrate and apply the lessons revealed during the ceremony.

Maintaining Emotional Balance:
Ayahuasca often surfaces suppressed emotions, encouraging participants to confront and process them with honesty and vulnerability. Alcohol, as a depressant, can destabilize this balance by amplifying emotional swings, triggering suppressed traumas, or delaying the resolution of emotional work initiated during the ceremony.

Ensuring Physical Safety:
The residual effects of Ayahuasca may still linger in your body for days or even weeks post-ceremony, leaving your system more sensitive. Alcohol can interact negatively with this heightened state, potentially leading to adverse physical reactions, discomfort, or even harm.

Facilitating Integration:
The weeks following an Ayahuasca ceremony are a sacred period for integrating the insights and transformations that have emerged. Alcohol can distract from this crucial process, reducing your ability to reflect on and apply what you have learned. By avoiding alcohol, you honor this time as an opportunity to deepen your self-understanding and align with the teachings of Ayahuasca.

Respect for the Sacred Process:
Indigenous traditions view the post-Ayahuasca period as a time of heightened spiritual receptivity and healing. Introducing alcohol during this period may be seen as a disruption to the sacred space Ayahuasca has created, reducing your alignment with its transformative power.

A Kind Recommendation
While the minimum abstinence period is two weeks, we strongly encourage you to consider reducing or completely discontinuing alcohol consumption in your life. Alcohol can act as a barrier to maintaining mental clarity, emotional balance, and physical well-being over the long term. By removing it entirely, you may find greater alignment with the personal and spiritual growth initiated by Ayahuasca, creating space for deeper, sustained transformation.

Energy-based practices, including modalities such as reiki, chakra alignment, kundalini awakening, holotropic breath work, acupuncture, and other forms of energy manipulation, should be paused for a minimum of two week after participating in an Ayahuasca ceremony. Ayahuasca operates deeply on an energetic and emotional level, engaging the mind, body, and spirit in a transformative process that is highly sensitive and nuanced. Adding external energy work during this critical period can disrupt or interfere with the natural course of integration initiated by the plant medicine.

The process facilitated by Ayahuasca is unique and demands a quiet, undisturbed space for reflection and stabilization. Energy modalities, while beneficial in other contexts, have the potential to overstimulate the energetic system already in flux after the ceremony. This overstimulation may lead to emotional or physical imbalances, such as heightened sensitivity, exhaustion, or an overwhelming sense of disorientation. These practices could inadvertently alter the insights or realizations that Ayahuasca brings forward, diluting their impact or redirecting their intended focus.

Moreover, the integration phase after Ayahuasca is designed to foster deep introspection, where participants are encouraged to allow the experiences and revelations to settle organically. The involvement of external interventions during this time can fragment the continuity of the Ayahuasca experience, making it harder to fully process the profound work already initiated within the body and mind.
By refraining from energy work during this period, participants create an environment of stillness and receptivity, allowing the effects of Ayahuasca to stabilize and resonate deeply. This period is an essential component of the broader process, ensuring that the teachings of the plant are allowed to unfold naturally, free from external influences or distractions. Participants are encouraged to engage in gentle, supportive practices such as journaling, mindful breathing, or spending quiet time in nature to enhance the integration process without imposing additional energetic demands on the system.

This recommendation is rooted in the importance of respecting the inherent wisdom of Ayahuasca, which requires no additional enhancement or interference to complete its intended work. Trust in the process, create space for internal growth, and honor the unfolding journey with patience and care.

Mindful Consumption of Information
The post-retreat period requires careful attention to the type of information and media you engage with. After an Ayahuasca experience, the mind is in a heightened state of receptivity, making it important to prioritize content that supports reflection and integration. Thoughtful information consumption fosters mental clarity and emotional stability while minimizing distractions that could hinder your process.

Key Guidelines for Mindful Information Consumption:

Select Supportive Content
Focus on media that aligns with the insights gained during your retreat, such as calming books, reflective podcasts, or educational materials.
Avoid overstimulating or negative content, such as distressing news or violent entertainment, which can disrupt your emotional balance.

Limit Digital Exposure
Minimize time spent on social media and other fast-paced platforms that can overstimulate the mind. Instead, engage in offline activities that promote presence and introspection.

Encourage Stillness and Reflection
Dedicate time for silence, journaling, or quiet contemplation to allow thoughts and emotions to settle naturally. Avoid filling every moment with input to give your mind space to process.

Engage with Intentional Conversations
Choose dialogues that inspire and support your current state of reflection.
Temporarily avoid discussing sensitive experiences with individuals who may not understand their depth or significance.

The post-retreat period is a critical time for integration, and establishing clear boundaries is essential to create a stable and nurturing environment. Boundaries help protect your emotional, mental, and energetic state, ensuring the insights gained during your Ayahuasca experience are processed with focus and clarity. Here are practical, professional guidelines for setting effective boundaries:

Prioritize Your Needs:
Allow Space for Reflection: Reserve time each day for quiet introspection, free from external demands or distractions.
Limit Over-Socializing: Avoid excessive social interactions, particularly with individuals or groups that may bring negativity, judgment, or emotional pressure.

Communicate Clearly:
Express Your Needs: Let close friends, family, or colleagues know that you are focusing on personal reflection and may need reduced engagement for a while.
Set Expectations: Share timelines for when you might be more available, helping others respect your process.

Evaluate Commitments:
Decline Excessive Obligations: Say no to tasks or events that feel overwhelming or misaligned with your current priorities.
Postpone Major Decisions: Avoid making life-altering choices during this vulnerable period, allowing your insights to mature naturally.

Create a Supportive Environment:
Curate Your Space: Surround yourself with calming and grounding elements, such as nature, meaningful objects, or quiet areas for meditation and rest.
Minimize Stressors: Limit exposure to overstimulating activities or environments that could disrupt your emotional balance.

Honor Your Energy:
Protect Your Emotional Energy: Distance yourself from people or situations that feel draining or triggering.
Rest When Needed: Give yourself permission to pause and recharge, recognizing that this is a vital part of the integration process.

The post-retreat phase is an opportunity to assess how your daily habits, relationships, and environment align with the insights gained during your Ayahuasca journey. This reflection helps identify patterns or behaviors that may support or hinder your growth, allowing you to make intentional adjustments for a more balanced and fulfilling life.

Key Areas for Reflection:

Daily Habits
Evaluate routines, such as diet, exercise, sleep, and mindfulness practices. Are they supportive of your physical and emotional well-being?
Consider incorporating new habits, like meditation or journaling, to reinforce the insights gained during your retreat.

Relationships
Reflect on the dynamics of your personal and professional connections. Are they nurturing and aligned with your values?
Identify relationships that may require clearer boundaries or greater attention to foster mutual respect and understanding.

Environment
Assess your living and working spaces. Do they provide a sense of peace and grounding?
Make small changes, such as decluttering or adding calming elements, to create an environment that supports your integration process.

Purpose and Goals
Revisit your personal and professional aspirations. Are they still aligned with the perspectives and values uncovered during your retreat?
Consider setting new intentions or goals that reflect your evolving priorities.
By reflecting on these aspects of your life, you create an intentional framework for implementing meaningful changes. This practice empowers you to integrate the lessons of your Ayahuasca experience into your daily choices, fostering sustained growth and alignment with your authentic self.

The integration process after an Ayahuasca retreat can be deeply personal, but you don’t have to navigate it alone. If you need guidance, reassurance, or a space to share your experiences, our team is here to support you.

How We Can Help:

Integration Assistance: Connect with our facilitators or therapists to explore the emotional and mental aspects of your journey.

Practical Advice: Receive guidance on how to maintain dietary, emotional, and lifestyle practices that support your post-retreat phase.

Community Connection: Stay connected through our Telegram group chat and engage with others who have shared similar experiences.

How to Reach Us

• Email: retreat@apljourneys.com