MENTAL WELLNESS INITIATIVE

2019 Trends

TREND 1: Bringing mental wellness to the workplace

Bringing mental wellness to the workplace: policies, purpose, pathways and profitability. This is where the world’s adult population spends most of its waking hours, and feedback on the GWI’s Mental Wellness White Paper indicates that the workplace is where mental wellness action is gaining early traction.

TREND 2: Breakthroughs in the brain science of mental wellness

· Brain plasticity: The brain can rewire, forge new pathways, and grow new grey and white matter with a range of wellness modalities, including meditation, yoga and dance.
· Emotional wellbeing: A revolutionary new understanding of emotions offers research showing that our brains are constantly predicting how we will experience and navigate through any future event based on our past experiences and expectations.
· Microbiome and the brain: The Gut-Brain Axis. Nutritional psychiatry first establishes optimal nutrition as the foundation for mental wellbeing and then asks “what are the remaining problems?”

TREND 3: Youth and mental wellness

Youth and mental wellness: lifelong mental wellness strategies starting in youth, including reducing digital addiction, peer-to-peer prevention strategies, nutrition for mental wellness, and early intervention strategies.

TREND 4: Re-connecting with one another

Re-connecting with one another: through touch, shared wellness activities (meditation, movement, laughter yoga, nutrition for mental wellness, etc.), nonpolitical social exchange, and learning/sharing new mental pathways for positive engagement with life.

TREND 5: Connecting with nature

Connecting with nature: as an elemental grounding and healing force—forest bathing (Shinrin-yoku), gardening, beach walking, thermal bathing, etc. Expect more science on the healing and mental wellness benefits of this.

The Global Wellness Institute serves as an umbrella organization for numerous Initiatives, that are independently chaired and run. The resources, editorial, research and opinions presented by the Initiatives do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the Global Wellness Institute.