Preparation Overview
Preparing for an ayahuasca ceremony involves three parallel tracks: physical preparation (diet and medication management), mental and emotional preparation, and practical logistics. How seriously you take each of these directly affects both the safety of your experience and its quality.
Most retreat centers will send you preparation guidelines when you register. Follow them — they are based on practical experience with hundreds or thousands of participants. What follows here is a comprehensive overview that covers what most centers recommend, with additional context about why each element matters.
If you take any medications — prescribed or over-the-counter — read our Drug Interactions Guide before starting any preparation. Some medications require weeks or months of supervised tapering. The dietary preparation below is important, but medication safety is the single most critical factor.
Your Preparation Timeline
The Dieta Explained
The dieta (diet) is both a safety protocol and a traditional practice. Understanding both aspects will help you follow it with appropriate seriousness.
The safety dimension: Ayahuasca contains MAOIs, which interfere with your body's ability to process tyramine — an amino acid found naturally in many foods. Normally, your body breaks down tyramine without issue. But when MAOIs are present, tyramine accumulates and can cause a sudden, dangerous spike in blood pressure called a hypertensive crisis. The dietary restrictions before ceremony are partly designed to reduce the tyramine load in your system.
The traditional dimension: In indigenous traditions, the dieta is a form of discipline and purification that prepares the body and spirit for the medicine. It involves not just food restrictions but also abstaining from sexual activity, alcohol, excessive social stimulation, and strong emotional inputs. Taitas and traditional healers take the dieta extremely seriously — in some traditions, healers follow strict dietas for months or years as part of their training.
You don't need to believe in the spiritual dimension of the dieta to benefit from following it. At minimum, it ensures you're physically safer. At best, the intentionality and discipline of the preparation process put you in a more receptive and grounded mental state for the experience.
What to Eat & What to Avoid
Rice (white or brown)
Fresh vegetables (steamed, grilled, or raw)
Fresh fruits (bananas, apples, berries)
Chicken or turkey (grilled, baked, steamed)
Fresh fish (grilled or steamed)
Eggs (lightly cooked)
Lentils and fresh beans
Mild soups and broths
Oats and quinoa
Olive oil (small amounts)
Herbal teas (chamomile, mint)
Water — lots of it
Aged cheeses — high tyramine (parmesan, cheddar, blue cheese, brie)
Cured and processed meats — salami, pepperoni, bacon, sausage
Fermented foods — sauerkraut, kimchi, soy sauce, miso, tempeh
Red meat and pork
Alcohol — all types
Overripe or dried fruits — raisins, dried figs
Fermented soy products — tofu is generally fine; soy sauce is not
Tap beer and red wine — especially high tyramine
Excessive caffeine
Very spicy foods
Chocolate (contains tyramine and stimulants)
Heavily processed or fried foods
The Tyramine Connection
Tyramine is created when proteins in food break down over time — which is why aged, cured, fermented, and overripe foods are the primary concern. Fresh foods generally have low tyramine content. The fresher the food, the safer it is during the dieta.
A hypertensive crisis from tyramine-MAOI interaction can cause sudden severe headache, rapid heartbeat, nausea, vomiting, and in serious cases, stroke. This is a real medical event, not a mild discomfort. The dietary restrictions are not suggestions.
That said, the MAOI activity of ayahuasca is relatively short-lived compared to pharmaceutical MAOIs. The greatest risk window is from several hours before ceremony through approximately 12 to 24 hours after. The extended dieta period (1 to 2 weeks) is partly about safety margin and partly about traditional practice.
Medication Preparation
This topic is covered in depth in our Drug Interactions Guide. Here is a summary of the key points:
Never stop psychiatric medications without medical supervision. Abrupt discontinuation of SSRIs, SNRIs, benzodiazepines, and other psychiatric medications can cause withdrawal seizures, rebound depression, suicidal ideation, and other dangerous effects. Any tapering must be supervised by your prescribing doctor.
Tell your doctor what you're planning. Inform them that you intend to participate in a ceremony involving a brew that contains MAOIs (specifically harmine, harmaline, and tetrahydroharmine). Ask them to review your current medications for interactions and, if appropriate, discuss a tapering schedule.
Tell the retreat center everything you take. This includes prescriptions, over-the-counter medications, supplements, and recreational substances. Be completely honest — they need this information to keep you safe.
Don't overlook over-the-counter medications. Common cold medicines containing dextromethorphan (DXM) are one of the most dangerous interactions. Check the active ingredients of anything you take in the weeks before ceremony.
Mental & Emotional Preparation
Physical preparation is measurable and concrete. Mental preparation is more personal and less prescriptive, but it is equally important.
Acknowledge your fears. It is completely normal to feel anxious, scared, or uncertain before a ceremony — especially a first ceremony. The experience is intense, unfamiliar, and involves surrendering control. Sitting with that anxiety rather than suppressing it is itself a form of preparation.
Manage your expectations. Ayahuasca does not always produce the experience you expect. Some people have profound visions; others feel very little on their first ceremony. Some experiences are blissful; others are terrifyingly difficult. Entering with rigid expectations of what "should" happen increases the likelihood of frustration or resistance during the experience.
Reduce stimulation. In the days before ceremony, consider reducing your intake of news, social media, violent or emotionally intense entertainment, and draining social interactions. The goal is to arrive at the ceremony with a relatively calm and clear mind — not a mind already overstimulated and scattered.
Journaling can help. Writing about your reasons for participating, what you hope to understand or work through, and what you're afraid of can help clarify your thinking and reveal patterns in your emotional state. You don't need a polished narrative — raw, honest notes are more useful than curated reflections.
Setting Intentions
Most traditions and facilitators will ask you to set an intention for your ceremony — a question, theme, or area of your life you want to bring into the experience. This is not a "wish" or a "goal" in the conventional sense. It's more like a compass heading.
Good intentions tend to be open-ended and honest. "Help me understand why I keep sabotaging my relationships" is an intention. "Make my ex come back to me" is not. "Show me what I need to see" is simple and effective. "Give me a vision of my future" puts pressure on the experience to perform.
It's okay to have a simple intention. "I want to understand myself better." "I want to face my grief." "I'm open to whatever comes." These are all legitimate starting points. Don't overthink it — forced complexity doesn't make an intention more meaningful.
Hold your intention lightly. You may or may not receive anything that directly relates to your stated intention. The experience often addresses what you need rather than what you asked for. Clinging to your intention during the ceremony can create resistance. State it, hold it in your awareness, and then let go.
What to Pack
Specific packing needs will depend on the retreat center's location and facilities. The following covers what is generally useful regardless of setting:
For the ceremony itself: Comfortable, loose clothing you don't mind getting dirty (light colors are traditional in some settings). A blanket or shawl (it can get cold at night, even in tropical climates). Socks (floors can be cold). A headlamp or small flashlight with a red light option (so you can find the bathroom without blinding yourself or others). A water bottle. A journal and pen.
For the retreat: Sunscreen and insect repellent (retreats are often in rural areas). Any toiletries you need. Comfortable walking shoes. A swimsuit if there's water nearby. Cash in Colombian pesos for tips or incidentals (many rural retreats don't accept cards). Photocopies of your passport and insurance information.
For safety: A charged phone with the retreat's address, nearest hospital, and emergency number (123) saved. Your travel insurance details. Any personal medications you still take (that have been cleared for the ceremony period). A basic first aid kit.
Leave behind: Expectations of luxury. Your laptop (unless essential). Anything you'd be devastated to lose. Valuables. Your need to document everything on social media.
The Day of Ceremony
Your retreat center will have specific instructions for ceremony day. In general, here's what a typical day looks like:
Morning and midday: Eat a light, simple breakfast and lunch. Rice, fruit, steamed vegetables, mild soup. Nothing heavy, spicy, or from the "avoid" list. Stay hydrated.
Afternoon: Stop eating by mid-to-late afternoon (typically 4 to 6 hours before ceremony). Continue drinking water. Spend quiet time. Many people meditate, journal, walk, or simply rest. This is not the time for intense exercise, heated discussions, or doom-scrolling.
Before ceremony: Change into comfortable clothes. Use the bathroom. Settle into the ceremony space. The facilitator will typically explain the format, review safety protocols, and invite participants to share their intentions.
Know that you can say no. When the cup comes to you, drinking is always your choice. If something feels wrong — if the setting feels unsafe, if the facilitator seems unprepared, if your gut is telling you to stop — trust that instinct. You can decline to drink and leave. There is no obligation.
Common Preparation Mistakes
Rushing medication tapering. The most dangerous mistake. Fluoxetine needs 5 to 6 weeks minimum to clear your system. Other SSRIs need 2 to 3 weeks. These are not timelines you can compress because you booked your retreat for next month. If you can't meet the safe washout period, postpone the ceremony — it's not worth dying over.
Treating the dieta as optional. Some people follow the diet loosely, reasoning that "a little cheese" or "one glass of wine" won't matter. Maybe it won't. Or maybe it will trigger a hypertensive crisis. The dieta exists for a reason. Follow it.
Not disclosing medications or supplements. Whether out of embarrassment, forgetfulness, or the belief that "herbal supplements don't count" — incomplete disclosure puts you at risk. Tell the center everything. 5-HTP and St. John's Wort, which many people take casually, are among the most dangerous interactions.
Overpreparing mentally. Reading every trip report on the internet, watching dozens of documentary clips, and building an elaborate mental framework for what will happen can work against you. Some orientation and research is valuable. Obsessive preparation creates rigid expectations that make the actual experience harder to surrender to.
Not planning for after. Integration is where the real work happens. Booking a flight home 6 hours after your last ceremony and jumping immediately back into a hectic schedule wastes much of what you've gained. Give yourself at least 1 to 2 days of buffer afterward, with minimal obligations.
Read our Drug Interactions Guide for complete medication safety information. See our Complete Safety Guide for how to evaluate retreat centers and protect yourself. Check our Legal Status Guide for Colombia's legal framework.