13 minute read
The Picture of Health
THE 2021 TRENDS REPORT FROM THE GLOBAL WELLNESS SUMMIT IS A THICK VOLUME. A SNAPSHOT OF SOME OF THE FINDINGS MAY SPARK NOVEL BUSINESS VENTURES AND A NEW WAY OF LOOKING AT YOUR HEALTH.
BY LES AUPIAIS
IT’S A SMALL MENTION in a recent online marketing post but the fragment of data says it all. North American Serta Simmons Bedding is rolling out the HeiQ-V-Block mattress, which uses microsilver particles embedded in the fabric during manufacturing to inhibit viruses and bacteria. It might have been seen as gimmicky at any other time but mid-pandemic, it makes sense. If you’re in the hospitality industry and almost your entire market is interrogating your sanitation protocols before they commit to your brand, then you had better audit every facet of your offering.
If health and wellness in decades gone by meant chucking handfuls of vitamins down our throats and running or working out a few times a week, today it’s a multifaceted, multibillion-dollar industry that doesn’t just inform what we eat and how we stay fit, but infiltrates every waking, working and sleeping moment of our lives.
The 2021 Wellness Trends Report gives us a glimpse of the future of an industry that spawns opportunities. If the wellness industry was buoyant before Covid-19, it has gone ballistic since 2020.
The report covers nine key categories. These include big media and celebrity endorsement of the wellness wave, evidence-backed health regimes, architecture and interiors that promote health, breathing as a health tool, the self-care renaissance, the role of colour in wellness, how the events industry has changed, financial wellness, and – the area that may resonate most with free-spirited South Africans – the move from tourist site-hopping to mindful travel.
In this issue of Val de Vie magazine, we focus on two of these areas with the power of our wilderness to heal and boost our spirits (see pg 38, 114 and 120), and how interior architecture and lighting (p 46) play a critical role in our wellbeing.
On the media front, a browse of any online content platform such as Netflix, Amazon Prime, HBO and Disney+ will pop up a vast menu of documentaries: food, climate, the planet, retreats, nature and mental health in various guises from investigative exposés to science-based documentaries. Full-length documentaries focus on how your protein is ethically farmed or how we are pillaging natural resources. They all sit comfortably alongside MasterChef and the usual thriller-fest.
Television devotes several channels to every possible wellness subject. Add the celebrity factor to the formula and you get the likes of Gwyneth Paltrow leading the charge with Goop, now a multimillion-dollar business. Movie stars are reinventing themselves as social and political Valkyries. While we may have followed Fonda and Deepak Chopra in decades gone by, sitting cross-legged on the appointed hour on our living room floors, we now have multiple streaming platforms on demand. On HBO Max, A World of Calm introduces viewers to a new type of sleep story narrated by big Hollywood names: Keanu Reeves, Nicole Kidman, Idris Elba. It seems our own dreams not only lack celebrity ‘oomph’ but they’re not really entertaining enough.
Human-powered wellness is a big trend and the solo challenge forms part of a new consciousness about the health of our bodies. OPPOSITE Xigera Safari Lodge in Botswana flies a high sustainable tourism flag. The new traveller, while enjoying the rare experience, is also attuned to the tourism benefits for communities. The lodge used 80 African designers and artists to produce their furniture and art.
The way we consume our media has radically changed. We have gurus-to-go, and the mantra is ‘go do’, not just ‘go watch’. And on that note, our watches have become wearable, trackable and personalised. Apple CEO Tim Cook hints in a recent Outside magazine article that ‘the things going on in our labs are mind-blowing.’
From the eye to the ear, the report touches on another stream of entertainment geared towards our wellbeing, which is ‘transforming the $50 billion global music industry’ with Spotify, Amazon and Apple, for example, jumping on the turntable.
What is hovering on the edge of science-fiction is the inevitable progress of artificial intelligence. The Wellness Trend Report cites that ‘the march of AI and biometric technologies has given birth to “generative” sound technologies, which work by capturing your biometric and situational data to create an always unfolding sound environment …’
It’s a little unsettling, this onslaught on every sense we possess. The clamour from ‘experts’, influencers, celebrities, professionals and savvy marketers mining the gaps has resulted in an opposite reaction. Escape. Or even headlong flight.
With the pandemic jamming on the global travel brakes and, at its height, even locking down domestic borders, those who used to dream of getting away are now ready to flee. But there’s a proviso and we’re writing our own small print in the contracts.
The overtourism (it’s now a word) of pre-pandemic years – the armadas of cruise ships carrying thousands of tourists who de-gorge at the world’s most famous ports – are no longer as welcome as they once were. Neither are the jammed busloads of backpackers travelling on the cheap.
The global icon cities are thinking very hard about the overcrowding that is chasing permanent residents away (and with them the municipal funding to float an expensive infrastructure) because the figures don’t balance. Backpackers travel on a tight budget and while the cruise ships may provide a spike in retail and guided excursions at their ports of call, these floating hotels with their 24/7 food supply have a negative impact in sheer numbers. According to website Responsible Travel, ‘Venice has become too expensive, too impractical and just too much of a tourist theme park for most residents to be able to stay. Three decades ago, more than 120 000 people called Venice home. Today, there are 55 000.’
The global report says, ‘From the manic travel of 2019 – which was the ninth year of record-setting growth in travel, outpacing global
economic expansion, according to the World Travel & Tourism Council – 2021 will be the year of the travel reset, going slower, nearer and more mindfully.’
Travellers with means are not only looking for more unique, more bespoke experiences with a handful of likeminded companions, but are becoming more attuned to how and where their tourism spend is going. Do local communities benefit, are cultures and environments being sustained because of their choices, and could the outcome of their choices ultimately leave the chosen destination better off? In the report, New York Times columnist Elaine Glusac interviews Brian Chesky, CEO and founder of Airbnb, who believes that the world will not return to the way it was and that ‘the pandemic had “redistributed” travel from a handful of iconic bucket-list destinations to small communities and more remote destinations.’
Botswana’s Xigera Safari Lodge is a prime southern African example. The report touches on the trickledown effect of sustainable tourism that benefits communities and makes it more difficult for poaching to set up a stronghold. Xigera used 80 African designers and artists to produce over 90 percent of its furniture and art. That kind of strategy lands soundly with the traveller looking to support sustainability.
It has also paved the way for ‘regenerative travel’ with resorts shifting gears, detailing where they source food to how they generate electricity. The lodge of the future will be scrutinised carefully for its off-grid, social responsibility policies and general wellness ratings. The new five-star brass plaque will have to mean way more than a conference centre and 24-hour room service.
Closer to home, there’s another key movement. In South Africa, it was the ‘staycation’ as luxury lodges and hotels lowered their rates to accommodate local travellers bound to a rand spend. What was formerly impossible to afford became accessible to an upper middleincome market. Just in time, it seems. Recent research covering working habits across North America, Europe and the Middle East shows that, on average, people working from home spent almost an hour longer per day doing so with attendant high screen time. While there are no available South African statistics, anecdotally the pattern seems very similar. This trend has given rise to concerns about physical self-care and mental health.
In this edition of Val de Vie, we run several features on local destinations where nature, pristine air and menus created from locally sourced ingredients feed into the concept of a wellness experience. Internationally, tour company Backroads has developed a new set of trips called Dolce Tempo (or ‘sweet time’), with tours to national parks that, they say, cover less ground but explore it more deeply.
But it’s not all a stroll in the park. At Auberge Resorts’ Mauna Lani in Hawaii, guests are offered underwater rock running as a workout. No lazy fin paddling for some then. Human-powered sport is big, and the wellness challenge may include anything from climbing to kayaking. In this issue, we’ve opted for the surge in e-biking (pxx), not as a lazy cyclist’s escape-the-agony-of-hills alternative, but looking at how it takes riders further, faster and more frequently. The e-bike is likely to be as firmly on the sporting menu of a hotel or lodge as is tennis and golf.
While the hospitality industry adjusts to the new mindful traveller, closer to home, architects are facing a heightened awareness of how they design spaces for the post-pandemic client.
The built environment – whether at work or at home – has a profound impact on our wellbeing, and it includes respiratory health, stress levels, our immune systems and how we interact socially. After a year, says the report, we are seeing architecture elevate its game in all areas…
ABOVE What we attuned our ears to has also changed. Pandemic stress has given rise to wearables, such as Anicca, that generate calming vibrations attuned to your breathing. LEFT The Endel app creates personalised, neuroscience-backed soundscapes. The German company wants to make AI-powered mindfulness accessible to all to help reduce stress and combat insomnia.
RIGHT No lazy paddling for guests at Auberge Resorts’ Mauna Lani in Hawaii. On the list of body-powered sports is underwater rock running. BELOW Xigera’s lounge is part-relaxation area, part-gallery. Pretoria-based artist Philippe Bousquet sculpted the chess set surrounded by three ceramic seats designed by Andile Dyalvane. BOTTOM We may never own a priceless Pierneef but we might have a close encounter with his work. The Baobab Treehouse at Xigera was inspired by a solitary baobab tree by the artist.
Dr Phillip Tabb, an architect and professor emeritus of Texas A&M University, says, ‘The average homeowner uses someone else’s ideas of what a house should be like, rather than going through their own introspective and self-reflective process.’ The deduction is that you need to decide how you want to live rather than what you want to live in. It seems to call for a household indaba about how the house design could make individuals more fulfilled, healthier and happier.
This may take the form of relooking at traditional, neglected spaces. Right now, the norm is a bathroom consisting of a vanity, toilet, bath and shower but the future might ask for a dedicated ‘bath room’ for rejuvenating bathing rituals.
The kitchen will no longer simply house appliances with ample storage and surface workspace, but might include a ‘wellness’ section to store and serve nutritious food or a space to share in communal preparation. The bedroom as an office/mini-gym/bed-set space is very last decade and now morphs into a ‘sleep sanctuary’.
Most importantly, the cookie-cutter subdivided development that gives no thought to communal spaces or how a resident would interact with nature is replaced by the concept of a more thoughtfully designed community where open spaces and nature become vital to wellbeing. Communities built with the environment and an active, outdoor lifestyle in mind will become a more attractive option. Tabb speaks of spaces that have meditation benches; places to be still and experience the moment.
Val de Vie Estate, with its waterways, indigenous bush surrounds and wildlife, talks to this consciousness about the natural environment with an understanding that it’s as vital to a community as its sporting facilities and amenities.
What may be a left-field and slightly unexpected trend is financial wellness – and it’s nothing to do with the comfort that comes with significant means.
In the report, Cecelia Girr, strategy director for TBWA Global, and Skyler Hubler, TBWA’s cultural strategist, write about the money and mental health link. Awkwardness around discussing money – be it based on cultural, religious, traditional or societal mores – is being replaced by a more candid, open approach, and it’s a part of a larger mental health awakening. ‘Not talking about money is making us sick,’ they say. It’s obvious that debt will play on our health and may result in depression and anxiety but it doesn’t mean, they argue, that being debt-free is the answer. ‘That’s
where financial wellness – not to be confused with financial health – comes in.’ Wellness, apparently, comes to those who explore their relationship with money and, they say, are prepared to unearth deeper issues that are negatively affecting that relationship.
The trick, it seems, is to ‘Trojan horse’ the topic along with other health offerings on a menu. UK-based Tesco is a partner of Gympass, a wellness platform that offers mind and body solutions including mental health, tailored nutrition plans, mindfulness, meditation, sleep and relaxation programmes plus financial wellbeing advice. There it is, smuggled cleverly into all the appealing healthy options where it rubs well-toned shoulders with all the usual wellness offerings.
ZavFit, a European health-tech startup, has built the first money tool that focuses on improving the health and happiness of the individual as an outcome. Company founder and CEO Anna Freeman wants to see a money fitness movement. ‘Being money fit isn’t about how much money you have,’ she says, ‘it’s about how you use the money you have.’
Enter the gamification of money. ‘In Nintendo’s Animal Crossing: New Horizons video game, players learn to manage long-term debt, build a budget, and trade on the “stalk market”,’ says the report. If children learn early enough about managing money, a century’s old taboo is game-over.
There is no question that we cannot return to a pre-pandemic way of doing business. Nor should we want to. What lies ahead is a wealth of wellness opportunities, opportunities to change the way we live, breathe, play, travel, what and how we consume, and how we interact with our fellow human beings. It’s about time. t The 2021 Wellness Trends from Global Wellness Summit is brilliantly researched and makes for captivating reading. For more information, visit globalwellnesssummit.com
