VR Meditation in Photorealistic Nature
Your personal haven for relaxation, sleep and focus.
Photorealistic Nature VR Environments
Soul Retreat is your personal haven for relaxation—immerse yourself in photorealistic natural landscapes, explore personalised guided meditations and stories, or simply enjoy calming music and breathing exercises. Each session takes place in a real location, captured on site and reconstructed using our GroundedPresence™ true-scale alignment so the ground meets your feet where you expect it—more comfortable whether you sit or stand. While many VR wellness experiences take you into stylized digital worlds, Soul Retreat returns you to nature—quiet beaches, still lochs, and Highland glens—brought to life with natural hand movements and optional voice commands so you can settle in quickly and stay present. A small gesture shifts the daylight, warming toward evening or easing into night.
Personalized Guided Meditations That Adapt to You
No two days—or minds—are the same. Soul Retreat personalises guided meditations using your goals and quick check-ins, built with a PhD psychologist and grounded in proven mindfulness and positive-psychology practices. Each session follows a research-supported, step-by-step method: welcome back → relaxation check-in → ~1 minute of slow paced breathing → your choice of meditation (body scan, nature imagery, or story-based guidance) → closing check-in, so you finish noticeably calmer.
Guidance mirrors your surroundings with visualisations, local-legend tales, or mentor stories (e.g., Marcus Aurelius). Choose 5–30 minute sessions, and follow 7-day Calm, Sleep, and Focus programmes with simple progression. Your before/after ratings help Soul Retreat learn what reliably helps you unwind.
Resonance Breathing & Biofeedback in VR
At any time during your session, when you place a hand on your stomach, Soul Retreat uses music and biofeedback to encourage a resonance breathing pattern of around six breaths per minute, a technique supported by research into stress reduction and heart rate variability. As night gathers, the sky becomes a living canvas, where stars spark to life and constellations unfurl in time with your breath. Every inhale and exhale triggers musical notes, turning the session into a relaxing, evolving piece of music.
What People Are Saying
In an early beta with ~100 participants, most were still using Soul Retreat after 30+ days, and 85% reported feeling more relaxed after sessions. Several participants said it was the first meditation app they’d stuck with, using it multiple times per week for 6+ months.
"I’d never meditated and was sceptical it would help. Now I use Soul Retreat every day after work to shift from my ‘work headspace’ into my ‘relaxed headspace.’"
— Anthony, 41 (UK)
"What really stands out is the impact beyond the sessions—I feel calmer, more grounded, and more at ease throughout the day."
— S.O., 43 (USA)
"What I love most is how realistic the environments feel—natural sounds and movement—and how I can tailor sessions through conversation."
— S.C., 45 (USA)
These are early, self-reported results from a ~100 person beta (not a clinical study).
Start Free — Unlock More with Soul Retreat Plus
Soul Retreat is a premium subscription app with a free starter: two free environments plus a bonus environment that rotates weekly. Soul Retreat Plus ($6.99/mo or $34.99/yr — cancel anytime; $69.99 lifetime) includes all environments, hands-free voice navigation, and deeper personalization. Compare Free vs Plus.
Soul Retreat Plus membership helps fund ongoing development—covering exclusive, real-travel, expedition-shot photorealistic environments, expert-guided content, and AI compute needed for adaptive guidance.
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Our Principles
We believe VR and XR can offer a unique sense of “being there” in nature—especially for people without easy access, including those in hospital beds. This isn’t possible on a flat screen.
We follow the science to build something genuinely helpful for stress. The evidence is clear on the benefits of nature immersion, and we’re building GroundedPresence™ to maximise presence. The science is also clear on resonance breathing—so we make it easier to do, and easier to stick with.
We’ll stay focused, and user-led. We deeply value the people who return to Soul Retreat week after week—and we build with you, learning from what helps in real life and improving it with every release.
We’ll also partner with the academic community and public healthcare—including the NHS and universities—offering licences free for research and low cost for public services, and sharing anonymised usage data so researchers can test what works best. Our goal is to help identify what’s most effective—and turn those insights into a calmer daily reality for as many people as possible.
Evidence-Informed
The Science of VR Meditation and Resonance Breathing
Soul Retreat blends two proven methods— VR nature immersion and resonance-frequency breathing—to help you feel noticeably calmer in minutes.
VR nature immersion reduces stress. Controlled studies show that immersive, photorealistic nature in VR lowers stress markers and negative affect, and improves mood; higher immersion tends to yield stronger effects. Evidence includes a systematic review (Frontiers in Psychology, 2023), a VR vs. screen randomized study (Virtual Reality, 2022), and a review of VR for stress management (JMIR Mental Health, 2024). Additional research shows VR relaxation and VR-based HRV biofeedback produce beneficial psychophysiological changes (Frontiers in Virtual Reality, 2024).
Why immersion matters. Being “present” in natural scenes blocks everyday distractions and cues the body’s relaxation response, resulting in lower heart rate and calmer affect (Frontiers in Psychology, 2023; Frontiers in Psychology, 2020).
Resonance-frequency breathing (≈0.1 Hz, ~6 breaths/min) is science-backed. Meta-analyses and randomized trials show that breathing at or near your resonance frequency increases Heart Rate Variability (HRV)—a key marker of autonomic balance—and reduces stress and anxiety. Major reviews include a meta-analysis in Psychological Medicine (Goessl et al., 2017), a systematic review and meta-analysis in Applied Psychophysiology & Biofeedback (Lehrer et al., 2020), and a meta-analysis in Scientific Reports (2021).
Mechanistically, slow rhythmic breathing around 0.1 Hz synchronizes respiration and cardiac rhythms (RSA/baroreflex), producing larger, more coherent HRV oscillations associated with improved resilience and calm mood (Frontiers in Neuroscience, 2020; Physiological Reports, 2019).
Bottom line: Taken together, immersive nature scenes and slow breathing help lower stress and improve mood.
Disclaimer: Soul Retreat is a self-help wellness and relaxation app, designed for adults. It is not therapy, does not diagnose, treat, or prevent mental-health conditions, and is not a substitute for care from a licensed professional.
Evidence-Informed and Privacy-First
The product was developed with advisory input from well-being experts, including a PhD psychologist and therapist. Preferences are stored on device, only minimal, anonymous analytics are collected. Voice is processed to respond in the moment and isn’t stored by Soul Retreat. Find out more in the Plain English Summary of our Privacy Policy.
Content last reviewed by Clinical Psychology Advisor, Dr Sonia Madrid Cuevas: .
Meet the Team — Key People
Ben Gillett, BSc, MSc — LinkedIn
Founder, Soul Retreat
Product designer and meditator. Ben sold his previous company to Apple and spent ten years there in product design before founding Soul Retreat to make deep relaxation effortless through immersive nature and sound. "When stress became hard to ignore, I looked for reliable ways to relax. I created Soul Retreat so that pause is easy to reach when you need it."
Dr Sonia Madrid Cuevas, BSc, MSc, PhD
Clinical Psychology Advisor
Clinical psychologist with NHS experience in the UK and Mexico. PhD (University of Edinburgh), MSc (UCL). Sonia ensures Soul Retreat’s guidance reflects current psychological research and best practice.
Ignacio Ferrando Margeli
Environment Capture Director
Ignacio is an award-winning cinematographer who’s spent months delivering 360° work for National Geographic. For Soul Retreat, he treks for hours into remote landscapes with the best 360° capture gear on his back—capturing the light, texture, and atmosphere that make our environments feel vividly real.
