Yoga retreats? Light- weight. Spa breaks? Mollycoddled. I am kneeling on a cold stone floor, surrounded by shaven-headed men in hooded white robes.

The only light comes from four guttering candles that send shadows towering along the vaulted ceiling. Dawn is still an hour away. This, I want to shout, is a real escape from the modern world. I want to, but I can’t — I’ve taken a vow of silence.

As stress-busters go, it gets no more hardcore. A 12th-century monastery in the north of Scotland, tucked away in a hidden glen, inhabited only by Benedictine monks and their occasional guests.

For miles around, there is nothing but ripe nature — conifers and copper beech trees on the slopes up above, bulging orchards and small fields of cabbages and potatoes down below. Highland cattle and gimlet-eyed goats watch curiously as you creep up the curving drive.

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So medieval is the scene, you expect to be greeted at the old oak door with a goblet of chilled mead. Instead, Brother Gabriel ushers you into the ancient cloisters and whispers the rules of your stay: silence at all times, meals with the monks at lunch and dinner, optional Latin services throughout the day. Laptops are banned, mobiles a no-no.

Living quarters are spartan — single bed, sink, four walls, door — and the manual labour is shared. Gabriel makes an unapologetic face, but he needn’t have bothered. Punch-drunk from fighting an unwinnable battle with endless e-mails and relentless deadlines, I’m ready for the coldest of turkey.

Which is probably just as well. When the bells ring for dinner, it is like walking onto the set of Cadfael, minus the television-standard catering. The scalped monks sit at long wooden tables, with kaleidoscope light coming through stained-glass windows, and stare wordlessly at their neatly folded napkins.

Bells are rung, a Latin Grace is sung by the abbot. I wonder excitedly what Middle Ages delight might be served — roasted swan, perhaps, or haunches of venison? That a metal tray is brought in, bearing inch-deep soggy pizza, is something of an anticlimax.

On my bedroom window, I had spotted two stickers. “In this place, I shall give peace,” read one. “A life without Whitesnake is not a life for me!” proclaimed the other. Perhaps the brothers’ tastes have moved on. There are no obvious fans of hair, let alone hair metal. As for squealing solos on electric axes, there isn’t so much as a lute in sight.

The silence creates a curious atmosphere. It’s both convenient — farewell, awkward small talk! — and somewhat problematic. A request for the salt becomes an elaborate charade, a clearing of the throat an ear-splitting intrusion. So hard are you concentrating on not speaking, your body plays perverse games.

Sneezes come from nowhere, pockets of trapped wind well up as if by cruel magic. When the monk on my left proffers a jug of plum juice, I instinctively want to thank him. Instead, I clap hand over mouth just in time and settle for a conspiratorial wink. From the expression on his face, one man’s conspiratorial may be another man’s salacious. The plum juice remains untouched for the rest of the meal.

Partly by way of recompense, partly because there is absolutely nothing else to do, I follow the monks into the dark abbey for Compline, the final prayers of the day. So spookily restful is it — Gregorian chants echoing off the bare stone walls, incense snaking slowly upwards, candles crackling and waving — that retiring to bed afterwards, as they do, seems perfectly natural, even though it’s not yet 8.30pm.

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