The Global Wellness Summit, a global organisation who every year predict trends in the world of wellness explain how COVID has impacted on what’s coming next.
The Global Wellness Summit publish the trends in The Future of Wellness 2021 report, based on what they and thought leaders, medics, business owners and policy makers believe will have the most meaningful impact on wellbeing in 2021.
According to the Global Wellness Summit, Editorial Director, Beth McGroaty, the value of wellness has “skyrocketed” due to the pandemic and it’s a watershed moment for wellness with lots of opportunities. (Tune in to Beth’s overview of the trends here).
Wellbeing can no longer be ignored, says McGroaty (a woman reads about wellness trends, news and research every morning for two hours, all year round) summarises some of the changes she and her team have observed for 2021.
Here’s the nine Global Wellness Summit’s wellbeing trends
- Hollywood Comes To Wellness – a rise in the big techs streaming wellness.
- The Future of Immune Health: Stop Boosting, Start Balancing, the need for evidence from the wellness industry.
- Spiritual and Numinous Moments in Architecture.
- Just Breathe! Breath coaches, communities, and books.
- The Self-Care Renaissance – where wellness and healthcare converge.
- Adding Colour to Wellness – it’s time to make wellness diverse.
- Resetting Events with Wellness – incorporating treadmills to conferences instead of chairs.
- Money Out Loud – Financial wellbeing: influencers, apps and money therapists.
- The Year of the Travel Reset – manic getaways are replaced by slower, closer and more mindful experiences.
Here’s i-wellbeing’s summary of some of the key trends.
Democratising wellness
Pre-pandemic wellness was associated with elites, the rich and the white. That’s all set to change, and there’s now an “aspirational vibe” says Beth McGroaty. The tech giants are getting in on the act with wellness and a growing wellness music sector and as our lives have shrunk to screens the big winners are the streaming media services, a perfect format for wellness.
The health space has been digitised and in 2020 Calm and Headspace were thriving enabling them to launch TV shows on HBO and Netflix respectively.
Apple, Samsung and Amazon have all connected wearables to TV – it’s a story of reach.
Balanced immunity trend
Say goodbye to pop-it, guzzle-it supplements and hello to evidence-backed immune health. COVID highlighted a fact that McGroaty is keen to emphasise, we cannot boost the immune system – if we do our body’s attack themselves. She points out that preventative wellness practitioners need to lean into science, and we need to start talking about balancing immunity and focus on immune modulation and not boosting immunity.
Metabolic health, microbiome, and personalised nutrition are identified as key pillars in relation to immunity.
More research into gut health will be done, partly driven by the fact that bad gut health was found to be directly related to COVID deaths and 70 per cent of our immune system is in out gut.
Spaces and wellbeing
Senses, Space and Sleep is a sector of the market said to be worth $49.5 billion in 2020. The space we occupy has moved beyond functional – buildings have soul.
Wellness kitchens and wellness bathrooms are set to become the norm as we’ve had time to reflect on the space we occupy, for example the bathroom will become the bathing room for a detox salt bath, introspection and rejuvenation.
Wellness meets basic human needs
With religion taking a step back, wellness now fills the spiritual space, what McGroaty calls the “empty soul space”. COVID put death on the agenda and death and dying are a part of the wellness industry with the growth of services such as death doulas. There’s an “ache for nature” and in the midst of a climate and natural crisis there’s an almost psychic desire to get in touch with nature, says McGroaty (as witnessed with the rise of wild swimming, for example). And mental health is a global priority, with commonplace stress being replaced by post traumatic stress disorder and grief.
Financial wellness
COVID has left us vulnerable and there’s a new openness and transparency where finances are concerned.
Financial therapists, Tik Tok Influencers and apps to help you save are there to prop up our financial wellbeing.
