The Art of Unwinding
Meet the Team

Every person who joins The Art of Unwinding Retreats is placing real trust in the experience — and Aoife takes that trust seriously. Over many years working at the heart of the retreat industry, she has come to understand that the quality of a retreat is only ever as good as the people who hold it. With this in mind, she has carefully and deliberately gathered a team of therapists, teachers, facilitators, and culinary creators who share not only her professional standards, but her values — a genuine commitment to care, presence, and the belief that every guest deserves to feel truly seen and supported.

Each member of the team has been chosen not just for their expertise, but for the quality of their attention. These are people who bring their whole selves to their work — who understand that healing happens in the spaces between the sessions as much as within them, and who know how to hold space with both skill and warmth. Together, they create the conditions in which real unwinding can happen.

Aoife Brewster

Founder, Author & Retreat Host

Aoife Brewster is the founder of The Art of Unwinding Retreats and author of The Art of Unwinding. Her work is rooted in her own healing journey and a deep belief in the importance of slowing down, releasing inherited patterns, navigating life's inevitable challenges, and finding our way back to a more authentic version of ourselves.

With nearly 30 years of experience as a therapist and over 17 years working within the wellness and retreat industry in Portugal, Aoife has walked alongside thousands of people on their path towards greater health and self-understanding. For 12 years she served as one of the Head Therapists at Juicy Oasis — the celebrated retreat founded by bestselling wellness author Jason Vale — where she was part of the senior therapy team and brought several of her specialist therapies to the retreat programme.

Over time, her work has grown beyond traditional bodywork into something richer and more integrative. Drawing on breathwork, sound, meditation, therapeutic movement, and trauma-informed practices, she creates experiences designed to support deeper levels of release, self-awareness, and renewal.

A guiding principle running through everything Aoife does is that prevention is always more powerful than cure. Rather than waiting for the body or mind to reach a point of crisis, she helps guests build the awareness, tools, and daily practices that sustain their wellbeing long before that moment arrives. Woven through this is a profound and personal commitment to quality of life — not as an indulgence, but as something every person deserves to actively protect and nurture. This is not about perfection; it is about learning to live well, every day.

A particular focus of her work is the relationship between mind and body in chronic pain and long-term health conditions. She is passionate about helping guests cultivate a pain-free body — or, where that is not yet possible, a wiser, more compassionate relationship with the conditions they carry — so that life can be experienced with greater ease, freedom, and genuine vitality.

As host and curator of The Art of Unwinding Retreats, Aoife brings all of this together to create grounded, nurturing spaces where guests can peel back the layers, restore their equilibrium, and step forward with more presence, resilience, and self-understanding.