JUST BREATHE! By: Sandra Ballentine The Tech Breathwork apps and YouTube videos have been a thing for a while. Gaining traction are handheld devices that track air quality and fitness trackers and other wearables that incorporate breathing- related metrics like breathing rate, pulse oximetry, heart-rate variability and habitual breathing patterns. Some interesting examples include: HeartMath and lief use wearable sensors to help users track and…
The Oral Microbiome Trend: Putting the Mouth Back in Health & Wellness In our just-released Mid-Year Wellness Trends Update, we explore not only how the gut microbiome has become a burning issue in medicine and wellness in 2021 but how there’s also a new focus on other crucial microbiomes in our body. The “microbiome” refers to ALL the bacteria, viruses and fungi that live in and…
SPIRITUAL AND NUMINOUS MOMENTS IN ARCHITECTURE The Move from ostentatious fads to architecture that touches our soul By: Veronica Schreibeis Smith Introduction Architecture is a powerful influence on our wellbeing, as it simultaneously impacts all of our senses and each of the Dimensions of Wellness while making up 90% of our surroundings over the course of our lifetime. In recent years, cross-disciplinary studies have proliferated the industry with…
Hollywood and the Entertainment Industries Jump into Wellness Move over purists; big media means wellness for all By: Beth McGroarty INTRODUCTION The ways that wellness has rewritten vast industries such as food, travel, beauty, real estate and fashion have been endlessly documented. Fewer people have paid attention to how wellness is starting to shake up the global entertainment industries, how more innovative wellness programming is…
THE SELF-CARE RENAISSANCE: WHERE WELLNESS AND HEALTHCARE CONVERGE BY: Cecelia Girr & Skyler Hubler INTRODUCTION From 1400–1700, the Medical Renaissance marked a historic breakthrough in our approach to healthcare. Science began to dominate superstition. Anatomical discoveries paved the way for modern medicine. And yes, vaccines were in development. Over three hundred years later, we’re undergoing a new kind of medical renaissance, one where two complementary…
Resetting Events with Wellness You may never sit in a banquet chair again By: Nancy Davis In mid-March 2020, many activities came to an abrupt halt; one of them was in-person events. It was obviously no longer safe to gather, ironically at a time when human connection was needed more than ever. And no matter the power of technology and the gratitude we all felt for…
THE YEAR OF THE TRAVEL RESET By Elaine Glusac The healing power of nature, partially renewed by the mandate to maintain social distance, got a boost during the pandemic, as travelers flocked to the outdoors, from backyards to backwoods, throwing firewood on the blaze already ignited by forest-bathing and the movement by some medical doctors to prescribe time in the woods to patients seeking stress…
ADDING COLOR TO WELLNESS By Tonia Callender Your wellness is not my wellness Like many Black women, I mostly see wellness as a luxury that others pursue. I have the time, resources and interest to pursue wellness activities, but misconceptions and entrenched racial bias hinder my options. To me, wellness spaces, spas, studios and resorts seem designed for white people. When I do visit these…
MONEY OUT LOUD Financial Wellness Is Finding Its Voice By: Cecelia Girr & Skyler Hubler of Backslash, TBWA Worldwide Money has topped the “do-not-discuss” list for decades—right alongside religion, sex and politics. Bringing up the “m” word on a first date has long been considered a surefire way to guarantee you won’t get a second one. And just a few years ago, publicly sharing your…
Just Breathe! Breath goes from woo-woo wellness to a powerful health tool By Sandra Ballentine Introduction Breathwork used to sit squarely on the woo-woo side of the wellness spectrum, but in recent years, clinical studies conducted at schools like Harvard, Stanford and Johns Hopkins have put modern science and real data behind something we’ve actually known for centuries—the way we breathe has profound effects on…
