My Water-Fasting Story Unfiltered
My Water Fast Experience: Reflections from Practice and Fasting Guidance
Fasting is a profound conversation with the body. As someone who both practices prolonged fasting and guides others through fasting journeys, each fast continues to be an opportunity to slow down, listen deeply, and notice subtle signals that are often lost in the rhythm of everyday life.
Even with years of experience, fasting remains a teacher. Each fast offers insights, not only for my own process, but also for how I support others through seven-day water fasts and guided fasting retreats in the UK and abroad.
Why I Chose to Fast Over the New Year — and What I Learned
I chose to fast over the New Year because it felt like a natural time of hibernation. Work softens, days feel more spacious, and it seemed like an ideal moment to step out of routine and turn inward.
Reflecting on this week, I realise I wouldn’t choose this timing again, not because of temptation, food, drinks, or celebrations, which were not the challenge, but because this season is deeply relational. Conversations, catch-ups, and social connections had a greater impact on my nervous system than I had anticipated.
Even gentle interactions, walks with friends, spontaneous meetings, and long phone conversations, created stimulation my body didn’t have the capacity to integrate while fasting. The body was already engaged in deep internal work. Adding social and digital input tipped the balance.
This reinforced a principle I consistently emphasise when guiding fasting retreats: fasting is best supported in a quiet, low-stimulation environment, ideally with minimal phone use. Not because connection is unimportant, quite the opposite. We heal in relationships, but fasting asks for simplicity, reduced input, and space for the nervous system to downshift and repair.
Fasting and the Nervous System
Fasting is a deeply inward process. Even conversations with the loveliest people were not supportive of my state during this fast. Fasting invites listening rather than responding, sensing rather than engaging outwardly.
One moment stayed with me. I met a Muslim man observing Ramadan. When I mentioned that I was fasting, he gently said, “I won’t continue this conversation; it’s important to conserve your energy.”
I was struck by the simplicity and wisdom of that gesture. It echoes something I see repeatedly in guided fasts: fasting is not only about abstaining from food, but also about protecting energy, attention, and internal resources.
Emotional Benefits of Prolonged Fasting
Prolonged fasting often brings emotional shifts that surprise people. Calmness deepens, reactivity softens, and emotional space widens. Anger or frustration rarely finds much ground.
This emotional steadiness is one of fasting’s most valuable gifts. Each fast continues to deepen my understanding of emotional resilience, patience, and presence, qualities I also witness consistently in retreat participants as the days unfold.
A Little Science Behind the Fast
With each fast, I continue to observe how the body transitions from using glucose to producing ketones, and how this metabolic shift influences energy levels, mental clarity, and nervous system tone. As fasting progresses, the body enters a state that supports autophagy, a natural cellular process in which damaged or inefficient cells are broken down and recycled, allowing the body to regenerate and repair more efficiently.
Reduced digestive activity, combined with lower overall stimulation, can also support nervous system regulation. Many people experience a sense of calm and mental clarity as energy is redirected away from digestion toward cellular maintenance and repair.
Adequate hydration and attention to electrolytes remain essential during prolonged fasting. Simple support, such as salt water or other natural mineral sources, helps maintain balance and allows these internal processes to unfold more smoothly.
When undertaken appropriately by healthy individuals and with proper preparation, prolonged fasting can support metabolic flexibility, immune function, and cellular health. Many also notice a natural reset in appetite and food preferences, with increased sensitivity to nourishment after the fast.
Fasting as a Vision Quest
Beyond the physiology and the practicalities, fasting is also something harder to name. For me, it has always carried the quality of a vision quest, a quiet initiation.
Across cultures and throughout time, people have stepped into wild places at moments of transition to meet themselves more fully: to face fear (when we fast the innate fear of starvation), to remember what matters, to release what no longer serves, and to gather the medicine needed for the next stages.
When the body empties, something else comes forward. With fewer distractions, fewer inputs, and less effort spent on digestion, there is a deep stripping away. What remains is a state of listening. Insights don’t arrive as answers to questions; they surface organically, often uninvited. It feels less like searching and more like remembering.
There is a particular kind of alignment that emerges during longer fasts, a sense of being emptied out enough to hear what is true. Old patterns soften. Inner noise quiets. What matters becomes surprisingly clear, not because it is analysed, but because it is felt.
This is why fasting asks for humility and respect. It is not about pushing limits or achieving something. It is about creating the conditions for the body and inner intelligence to speak. Each fast becomes both a clearing and a recalibration, a return to something essential.
This dimension of fasting cannot be forced or replicated. It arises when the body feels safe enough, quiet enough, and supported enough to let go. It is also why fasting, when held with care, can be profoundly orienting, not only physically, but emotionally, mentally, and existentially.
Preparation, Refeeding, and Why They Matter Most
One of the most important things I share with those joining my fasting retreats is this: how you enter the fast matters — but how you come out of it matters even more.
Preparation gently eases the body into fasting, reducing unnecessary shock to the system and supporting a smoother experience. Equally, if not more important, are the days after the fast. Re-feeding is where real integration happens. After a prolonged fast, the digestive system, metabolism, and nervous system are highly sensitive, and the way food is reintroduced can either support healing or place strain on the body.
While I do not provide full re-feeding on retreat, participants are carefully prepared and well informed in advance. We break the fast together with a simple, gentle meal, and the deeper re-feeding process continues once participants return home. Clear guidance is shared so this transition can be approached with patience, awareness, and respect for the body’s timing.
This is why I emphasise that prolonged fasting is not just about the days without food. The fast itself may feel like the focal point, but it is the preparation and integration afterwards that determine how nourishing and beneficial the experience truly is.
Gentle Guidance from Practice
If this is your first prolonged fast, I strongly recommend joining a guided fasting retreat. Shared space, experienced facilitation, and a calm, supportive environment make a significant difference, physically, emotionally, and energetically.
If fasting independently, timing and environment matter. A full diary or socially demanding period rarely supports the depth of the process.
Additional reflections I continue to share with those I guide:
Honour quiet spaces: Silence and gentle walks support nervous system regulation.
Notice subtle signals: Small signs of overstimulation matter.
Support hydration and electrolytes: Simple, consistent care goes a long way.
Observe emotional shifts: Calm, neutrality, and sensitivity are part of the journey.
Reflect afterwards: Journaling helps integrate insights and supports future fasts.
Closing Reflection
After this week of fasting, I feel calmer, more centred, and deeply attuned to my body. Even with experience, fasting continues to be one of the most profound resets I know, physically, emotionally, and mentally.
Each fast reinforces what I see time and again in those I guide: health is something we can nurture with simplicity, presence, and care. Taking time to listen inward is not a luxury; it is one of the most powerful practices we have.
If you feel curious about fasting or would like to experience a guided fasting retreat, you can find more information about my work, upcoming retreats, and approach at:
7-day Guided Fasting Retreats | Online Guided Fast Groups
