Ocean Wellness Immersion
Your Ocean Transformation Awaits
Ocean Wellness Immersion
A one-day experience in personal mastery, nervous system regulation, and embodied confidence
Step into a powerful one-day Ocean Wellness Immersion guided by former continental freediving record holder Sophia Van Coller and trauma-informed performance coach Kimberley Houghton.
Through carefully facilitated ocean experiences, Sophia will teach you practical freediving and breath-based skills that cultivate calm under pressure, focused presence, and trust in your own capacity so you can learn how mastery feels in the body.
Alongside this, Kimberley will guide you in understanding how stress, subconscious patterns, and automatic responses shape the way you perform, relate, and lead. You’ll learn how to work with your nervous system rather than fighting it, allowing regulation, resilience, and sustainable success to emerge naturally.
This immersion is designed to create change that lasts. You’ll leave with practical tools to support your mental, emotional, and physical wellbeing—tools you can apply in the ocean, in your work, and in everyday life.
The ocean becomes more than a setting. It becomes a teacher.
A place to slow down, reset your nervous system, and reconnect with a deeper sense of self-trust and aliveness.
This is an invitation to step out of overdrive and into embodied clarity.
To rediscover your sense of adventure.
To reconnect with yourself through nature, presence, and purposeful challenge.
Book your spot: Only 8 spaces in total available.
A one-day Ocean Wellness Retreat in Cape Town blending freediving and trauma-informed practices designed to dissolve stress, unlock clarity, and reconnect you from the inside out.
Welcome: Begin with a warm welcome and an introduction to the day.
Ocean Connection and Mindfulness: A brief talk on understanding the nervous system to manage and maintain wellness and performance levels.
Understand Your Nervous System and its link to your health, well-being, and Performance:
Learn practical tools for self-regulation to allow you to remain calm, focused, and resilient under stress, enhancing your emotional well-being, decision-making, and overall quality of life.
Movement and stretching:
Gentle stretches and restorative movement designed to release tension and help your system soften. Learn simple, powerful techniques to unwind your mind and reset your nervous system.
Exploring the Magical Kelp Forests.
Next, we will take your adventure to the next level to snorkel the kelp forests made famous by My Octopus Teacher. Setting off from Simons Town.
Lunch - A delicious and healthy lunch
Sophia Van Coller Talk: Learn from a top athlete about mindset, nutrition, training and discipline. How to set goals and learn from mistakes, but most of all how to stay positive and have fun along the way.
Reflection and Rejuvenation
Sound Bath or Guided Visualisation: Close with a guided sound bath or visualisation to integrate the day’s experiences and promote inner peace, reduce stress and anxiety and improve sleep.
End of the Day
The Itinerary:
Why This Works
This immersion isn’t just a day by the ocean—it’s a carefully designed experience that taps into how your body and brain are wired to perform, adapt, and heal.
1. The Ocean as a Reset Tool
Being in water naturally activates the parasympathetic nervous system—your body’s “rest and reset” mode. Freediving amplifies this effect by teaching controlled breath-hold techniques, slowing the heart rate, and enhancing focus. Science shows that these practices improve stress regulation, calm the mind, and increase resilience.
2. Breath and Body as Anchors
Breathwork and embodied movement allow you to access your nervous system directly. When you learn to work with your body rather than against it, you gain control over stress responses, emotional reactivity, and unhelpful habits. This is the foundation of sustainable performance and self-trust.
3. Trauma-Informed Coaching Meets Peak Performance
Kimberley’s approach integrates neuroscience, trauma-informed coaching, and somatic practices. Research shows that working with the nervous system, rather than relying solely on willpower, creates lasting behavioral change, improves decision-making under pressure, and strengthens confidence from the inside out.
4. Immersion + Nature = Transformation
Time in nature and engaging in focused, challenging experiences triggers dopamine, serotonin, and endorphin release, enhancing learning, memory, and emotional regulation. Combining this with intentional coaching and freediving creates a multi-layered, transformative experience that sticks.
This isn’t just theory—it’s a method trusted by elite performers, athletes, and high-achieving leaders. You’ll leave with practical tools you can use immediately, in daily life, in work, and in your relationships, long after you leave the water.
The Ocean Wellness Day isn’t just an escape — it’s a deliberate, science-backed reset for your nervous system.
Freediving & the breath: Controlled breath exercises and safe ocean immersion activate the parasympathetic nervous system, helping you downshift stress and regain calm.
Somatic Practices: Guided movement and body awareness help you release tension stored in your body, increase resilience, and reconnect with your inner agency.
Nature as Teacher: Immersing in the ocean and kelp forests provides corrective experiences for the nervous system, fostering presence, clarity, and emotional regulation.
Integration: Reflection and guided processing ensure the day’s insights are anchored in your body and mind, leaving you equipped with practical tools you can use long after the retreat.
This combination of breath, body, and environment is uniquely designed to help you process stress, overcome mental chatter, and reconnect with your natural freedom.