MuLabs · Vale da Telha, Aljezur
Four days. One person.
Measured at both ends.
An immersion built for a single guest on the Costa Vicentina. Breath, neurofeedback, bodywork, water, heat and cold, and a guided journey — assembled around what your own brain recording shows on the first evening, and recorded again on the last morning.
You leave with a reading, not an impression.
- 4
- nights, arriving the evening before the first full day
- 1
- participant at a time, with a second guest possible
- 2
- practitioners, both working only with you
- 10
- practices across the four days
What it is
A retreat sized
for one person.
Most retreats are built for a group and then adjusted at the edges. This one starts from a single person, a recording of their nervous system, and two practitioners with nobody else to attend to.
Nothing is generic
The first evening opens with an intake conversation and a brain recording. The neurofeedback protocol, the breath pattern, how hard the body is worked — all chosen from what those two show.
Two practitioners, one guest
A neuroscience lead and a somatic practitioner, who also runs the kitchen. No group to keep pace with, and no schedule built around anyone else.
A house, not a venue
A private suite in our own house in Vale da Telha, fifteen minutes from the beaches of the Costa Vicentina. Food is bought at the local market and cooked in the house, together.
What gets measured
A retreat you only remember
is a holiday.
The reason we record the first evening and the last morning is so that you go home with something you can read, repeat, and check again a year later.
- 01
Baseline recording · the first evening
Quantitative EEG, eyes open and eyes closed, on arrival — before a single session happens.
- 02
Follow-up recording · the last morning
The same recording, the same chair, the same conditions, first thing. The comparison is the point.
- 03
Your report · within two weeks
What moved between the two recordings, in plain language, written by the MuLabs clinical team. Yours to keep.
- 04
A private call · then
One to one and online, to read the report together and decide what is worth carrying into daily practice.
The recordings describe what changed between two sessions. They are not a diagnosis and are not a medical assessment. MuLabs runs training and measurement; it does not diagnose or treat. Anonymised data is used in MuLabs research only with written consent, and nothing is ever published with your name on it.
Before you come
The work starts
before you arrive.
Four days for one person only works if the programme is built in advance. By the time you walk in, the week’s work is already done.
Two weeks out
The intake
History, sleep, load, medication, what you want to move. It decides the neurofeedback protocol, the breath pattern and how hard the body is worked.
Same conversation
What we screen for
Epilepsy and photosensitivity, cardiovascular conditions, pregnancy, acute psychiatric history. Some of these change the programme; a few rule out the light or the ice.
One week out
Food and the kitchen
Allergies and restrictions. The ferments are started, the broth is simmered, the dry mixes jarred, so the house smells of food rather than of cooking.
What to bring
Very little
Shoes that handle a cliff path, something warm for the evenings, swimwear for the circuit. Hair clean and product-free for the first recording — conditioner fights the electrodes.
The shape of it
One arc,
four days long.
Breath and movement while the body is fresh, the measured work mid-morning, the hands at midday, and one large thing in the late afternoon. The same rhythm each day, with a different weight on it.
The night before
Arrival
The suite, the house, the land. Intake conversation, then the baseline recording — before anything else happens. Dinner and an early night.
Day one
Activation
Breath-Mind Navigation, movement and flexibility, the first neurofeedback session with psychology, and Watsu — held and floated in the pool, in wetsuits.
Day two
Going deeper
The Alchemy Rewire journey with the light machine, then the contrast circuit — sauna and ice — and ninety minutes of deep tissue by candlelight.
Day three
Grounding
A guided trek on the Rota Vicentina, the third neurofeedback session, and somatic bodywork — rocking and traction rather than depth, to bring everything back in before the last night.
The last morning
Landing back
The follow-up recording first thing, same conditions as the first. A closing conversation about what to keep, brunch, and departure.
The practices
Ten of them,
across four days.
Each one is chosen and dosed from the intake and the first recording. Nothing on this list is run the same way for two different people.
Who is with you
Two practitioners.
One guest.
Not a rota of specialists passing you between them. The same two people for four days, who have both read your intake and both see the first recording.
Francisco Marques-Teixeira
Neuroscience · neurofeedback · breath
MSc Neuroscience, King’s College London. President of the Portuguese Neurofeedback and Neurotechnology Association. Ten years of clinical practice. Founder of MuLabs and author of its PRISM method.
Zoé Meeuwens
Bodywork · the kitchen
Massage and somatic practitioner, running the MuLabs bodywork practice in Aljezur. Designs the table — the ferments, the slow broth, the one-tray cooking — and cooks it with you.
The place
Vale da Telha,
Aljezur.
A house on the Costa Vicentina, inside the Southwest Alentejo and Vicentine Coast Natural Park. Fifteen minutes from the beaches, two hours from Faro.
The suite
A private room and bathroom in our own house, with the practice space, the massage room and the kitchen a few steps away.
The contrast circuit
Ten minutes down the road at the Esteva Spa inside Praia do Canal Nature Retreat: Finnish sauna at 90°, bio sauna at 70°, an ice tank, indoor and outdoor pools. The ice tank is the reason we go — a sauna alone gives you heat; the swing needs real cold.
The coast
A guided day on the Rota Vicentina, on the cliff path above the beaches — the part of the week that happens entirely outdoors.
What is included
Everything,
in one price.
One figure covers the room, the food, the people and the measurement. Nothing is added at the end.
- A private suite, four nights
- Full board, four days, cooked in the house
- Brain recording before and after, written report, integration call
- Neurofeedback with psychology, three sessions of 90 minutes
- Breath-Mind Navigation, three mornings
- Movement and flexibility, two sessions
- Massage and somatic work, three sessions
- Watsu in the pool, in wetsuits
- Two neuroscience classes, one to one
- The Alchemy Rewire journey, with the light machine
- Contrast circuit: sauna and ice tank
- A guided day on the Rota Vicentina
- Programme design, built from your intake, and integration afterwards
Four nights, one participant
4 400 €
Prices include IVA at 23%. The immersion takes place in Portugal, so Portuguese IVA applies to every guest, wherever you live — there is no exemption for visitors from elsewhere in the European Union or from outside it. If you are booking through a company registered for VAT in another EU country, write to us before you pay and we will tell you how your invoice is issued.
A second guest pays 1 900 €: everything one to one doubles, while the suite, the kitchen and the trek take two as easily as one. Airport transfer from Faro is arranged at cost. Nothing else is added at the end.
What you leave with
Four days,
and then the rest of it.
The written report
Within two weeks: what moved between the two recordings, in plain language, prepared by the MuLabs clinical team.
Your own recordings
Both qEEG files and the wearable data. Your data, and a baseline you can be measured against in a year.
A practice that fits
The breath pattern that worked on you rather than the one in the book, and the rhythm that produced the best sleep of the four nights.
Someone still watching
The integration call, then online follow-up through the weeks that decide whether anything holds. If the report points to work worth continuing, that is offered after the report — never as a condition.
Questions
The things people ask
before they book.
Can my company pay for it, and what happens to the IVA?
A company can pay, and plenty do. What changes is the invoice, not the price.
If the company is Portuguese, the invoice is the same as for a private guest: 23% IVA included. If the company is registered for VAT in another EU country, part of the invoice may fall under the reverse charge, where the tax is accounted for by your company in its own country rather than by us here. The accommodation does not move: a bed in Aljezur is taxed in Portugal whatever the buyer’s VAT number says.
Which parts fall which way depends on the company, so we will not guess it in advance. Write to us with the VAT number before you pay and we will have the invoice confirmed with our accountant first. It is a short conversation, and it is much easier before the money moves than after.
Is the brain recording a medical test?
No. It is a quantitative EEG recording, and it describes what changed between the first evening and the last morning. It is not a diagnosis, it is not a screening test, and it does not look for disease.
MuLabs measures, maps and trains. If something in your history belongs with a doctor, we will say so and we will not pretend the recording answers it.
Does any part of the four days involve a substance?
No. Nothing you are given to drink, breathe or take is psychoactive, and no part of the programme involves plant medicine of any kind.
The Alchemy Rewire journey is breath and rhythmic light. It can be a strong experience, and it is strong because of what breathing does to carbon dioxide and what flicker does to the visual system — not because of anything you have swallowed.
Is there anything that would stop me coming?
A few things change the programme, and a few rule out one part of it. We ask about epilepsy and photosensitivity, cardiovascular conditions, pregnancy, and recent acute psychiatric history, in the intake conversation two weeks before you arrive.
Most of what comes up adjusts the dose rather than cancelling anything. Photosensitivity rules out the light machine. Some cardiovascular conditions rule out the ice. The rest of the four days carries on, and we tell you which parts are off before you pay, not after.
What happens to my recordings afterwards?
They are yours. You leave with both qEEG files and the wearable data, and with the written report two weeks later.
We keep a copy so that a future recording can be compared against this one. Anonymised data is used in MuLabs research only if you give written consent, separately and in writing, and that consent is never a condition of coming. Nothing is ever published with your name on it.
Can I bring someone?
Yes. A second guest is 1 900 €. Everything that is one to one doubles — both brain recordings, the neurofeedback, the bodywork, the contrast circuit — while the suite, the kitchen and the trek take two as easily as one.
What does not change is that the programme is still built around one nervous system at a time. Two people get two programmes, not a shared one.
How far ahead do I need to book?
Three weeks is comfortable. The intake questionnaire goes out two weeks before you arrive and decides the neurofeedback protocol and the breath pattern; the kitchen starts the ferments and the broth a week out.
Less than two weeks and we are improvising the part of this that is supposed to be prepared, so we would rather give you a later date than a worse week.
What language does it run in?
English. If you would rather work in Portuguese, say so when you write — Francisco is Portuguese, and the neuroscience, the intake conversation and the report can all run in Portuguese.
How do I get there?
Faro is the nearest airport, about two hours by road. We arrange the transfer both ways and pass it on at cost. If you drive, there is parking at the house and nothing to pay.
One person at a time.
Tell us when.
Write with the window that suits you. We will send the intake questionnaire and tell you what is open.