I didn’t eat for 23 days, lost 49lb and felt healthier than ever, says DONAL MACINTYRE. So when the longevity guru doctor behind it raved about three-day total darkness experiment, I wanted to take part. What happened next changed my life…

Why would anyone in their right mind volunteer to sit alone in a pitch-dark, soundproof room for three days? More importantly, who will pay nearly £1,800 for the privilege?

Or maybe I should say torture, because that’s how most of us perceive being disconnected from everything that connects us to our daily lives: no phone, no laptop, no television, no books, no music, no human contact; Living quietly without a sense of time.

In prisons, they call this solitary confinement. But the modern monastic cell in which I recently found myself isolated is part of a high-end treatment experience billed as ‘The Ultimate Darkness Retreat’.

This might seem like the wellness industry version of America’s Guantanamo Bay detention center, especially for someone like me, where I always sleep with the bedside light on due to my fear of the dark.

But this sensory deprivation adventure is set in rural Poland, and the website of Within, the company that runs it, promises benefits ranging from stress reduction and better sleep quality to improved memory and greater immunity against disease.

As an investigative journalist, I’m more cynical than most when it comes to such claims. But this experience came highly recommended by someone whose advice I truly trust: longevity expert Dr Ash Kapoor.

Daily Mail readers will be aware that the person who guided me through a 23-day extreme fast in January last year was Dr. They might remember it was Kapoor. This tested every ounce of my determination and self-control, but I lost 43 kilos over those three weeks and another 6 kilos over the next six months, bringing me to 14th place.

I am now fitter than I have been in years, I run and go to the gym. And after restoring my physical health, I realized I needed a mental reset, too.

As TV viewers might guess from my hyper, fast-talking exterior, I drink up to eight cups of coffee a day. Everything about my life screams hyperactivity. If there was anyone who needed an escape like this the most, it was me. But it would be hard to think of anyone more unsuited to this challenge.

I enjoy being surrounded by people every day, both at work and in my family life, and I have had a mobile phone connected to me since the early 1990s. In terms of the belly, it is.

Giving it up feels like amputation. But Dr Kapoor had praised the benefits of retreating into darkness. And my interest was piqued even further when he put me in touch with its founder, Ananda-Jey Wojciech, an unlikely spiritual guide who founded the retreat at the end of 2024.

If you’re picturing him as a linen-clad mystic arriving from Bali with a gong, think again. AJ, as he is known, is a self-made Polish multimillionaire, a highly successful corporate lawyer who made his money running industrial-scale farms and various other businesses, and then one day found himself wondering what the point of it all was.

AJ has turned to yoga, meditation and cold tolerance sessions with Dutch wellness guru, so-called ‘Iceman’ Wim Hof, and has also undertaken a darkness retreat in Oregon, USA. This made such a deep impression on him that he wanted to bring it to his own country, and so he built five dark huts on his vast land near the historic city of Poznan, about 200 miles west of Warsaw.

AJ, who welcomed me into the luxurious surroundings of his grand lodge three weeks ago, explained that the retreat brings together groups of five people at a time to experience the experience, albeit in separate cabins. This approach was inspired by his experience building companies that provide addiction treatment.

Group sessions have a proven track record of helping drug and alcohol addicts, and since he sees retreating into darkness as a form of therapy, participants meet for pre-session counseling and talk about their hopes and fears about the experience the night before.

The other four people I met were tough meditation types. They were all in their 30s or 40s, much younger than me, including an athletic Norwegian stockbroker who was a former basketball player, an American expert in therapeutic breathing techniques, a Belgian relationship counselor, and an Irish mother who had attended many retreats.

With my dodgy knees, I can barely cross my legs, let alone assume a lotus position, but I was still looking forward to getting started as I was led out to the field, where the doors to the bays were buried in the hillside like the entrances to nuclear bunkers.

As an investigative journalist, Donal MacIntyre is more cynical than most when it comes to allegations of hiding in darkness

The doors to the compartments were buried in the hillside, like the entrances to nuclear bunkers.

The skeptic in me was ready to be surprised and enlightened, but first we had to prepare for the practical aspects of life in the dark.

We were each introduced to our sparsely furnished but beautiful accommodations, with soft bedding and cushions on the floor. And that first night, we were encouraged to turn the lights on as bright or dim as we wanted as we learned the layout of our environment.

In addition to the toilets, showers, and the intercom we could use to contact staff in case of emergencies, I also learned about the warehouse where the delicious plant-based meals of the day would pass each breakfast.

The next morning it was time for my cell phone to be handed in, the lights to be turned off, and my descent into darkness to begin.

With the door closed there was no faint glow, no glimmer of light, not even the red dot on the backup electronics. All light was denied to me. I could wave my hand in front of my face and see nothing.

The first 24 hours were not spiritual. They were a little annoying. My brain kept reaching for my phone like a phantom limb. I mentally drafted emails, imagined headlines, replayed unfinished conversations. When you remove stimulation you discover how dependent you are on it.

Reparations came soon. Darkness stimulates the production of melatonin, the body’s natural hormone that regulates the sleep-wake cycle. Without artificial light, the body begins to reset the circadian rhythm, leading to deeper, more restful sleep that night.

This was even more surprising considering the shyness about darkness I mentioned. The moment I entered the pod, I didn’t give this primal fear a second thought and soon discovered another benefit of darkness.

Cortisol (the stress hormone) begins to drop when external triggers disappear, and eventually my nervous system starts to feel like someone turned the volume down.

As I showered in the dark, everything seemed to be in slow motion and I felt the droplets on my back like never before. My dining experiences were explosive. When unwrapping Secret Santa-style meals, the aroma alone gave you a clue as to what you were eating. The raw carrots were similar to a Heston Blumenthal dish, as each flavor was amplified.

It was a revelation. I felt hedonistic. But more was to come. When deprived of external stimuli, the part of the brain that processes visual images begins to produce its own content: geometric patterns, sparkles, internal images.

I could only measure the time passing by the daily security check; a gentle knock on the door and my whispered confirmation that I had survived in response. Other than that: silence, pitch black. Just like my 89-year-old mother, who lives on her own and is remarkable in many ways, and was recently registered as blind.

Gradually I felt the boredom turn into something more interesting and many old memories surfaced.

The cabin doors are unlocked and I could turn on the lights or call the 24-hour staff at any time.

But I didn’t need to reach out, and I could understand why so few of the nearly 200 people who completed the program did so.

Little by little I felt the boredom turn into something more interesting: old memories surfaced; not traumatic flashbacks, just long ignored pieces, conversations, decisions, regrets, small moments of pride.

If you don’t get distracted, your internal archive will replay itself. This is what AJ calls ‘self-questioning’. He mentioned that the nervous system lives in fight or flight mode. He argues that darkness allows the parasympathetic system (rest and repair) to take over.

As I lay there in complete darkness, I could feel this change. As I rested, my heart rate dropped, my breathing slowed, my sense of urgency evaporated. I wasn’t accomplishing anything, and oddly enough that felt like a good thing. There were moments of unrest. Moments when I miss talking. At one point, I did push-ups in the dark just to confirm my continued existence. But I didn’t feel abandoned.

When King Charles talked about pausing in his Christmas speech, quieting our minds, stepping away from devices, he didn’t mean sitting in pitch darkness in a cubicle in Poland, but I had a new understanding of what he was saying.

He quoted the poet TS Eliot’s description of being ‘at the still point of the turning world’, and this suddenly seemed even more poetic and resonant, like the Simon & Garfunkel words that come back to me again and again: ‘Hello darkness, old friend’. Slowly the darkness started to feel like a friend. When the third security check came and I realized the hours were counting down, I found myself unusually calm and carefree.

Finally, I heard the instruction that we should wear the provided eye masks, and when the door opened, I was ushered with the others into the front room, lit only by the light of the wood stove. Once we felt ready there, we removed the eye masks and the orange light looked almost aggressive, although subdued.

Finally, I heard the instruction that we should wear the provided eye masks, and when the door opened, I was ushered into the waiting room with the others.

When we felt ready, we removed the eye masks and the orange light looked almost aggressive, although subdued.

When we quietly walked back into the house and I handed my phone back to find it wasn’t full of messages, I knew that the biggest realization I had from this retreat wasn’t mystical. I’m much more addicted to noise than I thought. And when the noise stops, I don’t disappear and the world doesn’t stop either.

Although the £1,800 cost of the retreat puts it out of the reach of many people, AJ plans to turn his organization into a charity which will focus on making it as accessible as possible.

Until then, of course, you can get to the darkness cheaper: a cave, a blackout room, a tent in the Highlands. I’d recommend this even if it’s just to put your cell phone away for the day.

After completing the retreat, I realized that the real test was not surviving three days without light. He’s trying to bring some of that serenity back into the glow.

We used to call that church a church, but when it disappears from our lives, we have to look for new moments and areas for contemplation.

Although it is the responsibility of others to judge, I feel that the retreat into darkness has led to a better version of myself: I am less convinced that urgency matters, I more easily recognize those in need, and I feel better equipped to reach out and help.

Maybe in a month I’ll be back to the way I was before I entered my luxurious cave. I hope not.