The Wealth/Wellness Connection: Swiss, Icelandic & US Consumers Spend the Most on Wellness The GWIs new research report, “The Global Wellness Economy: Country Rankings,” is packed with information on national wellness markets, including which countries spend the most per capita on wellness. Not surprisingly, the average annual consumer spend on wellness is the highest in the very wealthiest economies. Nearly all of the…
New Research Report The Global Wellness Economy: Country Rankings Report The nonprofit Global Wellness Institute (GWI) released today “The Global Wellness Economy: Country Rankings,” the first research to measure the wellness economies of 150 nations. It’s packed with information on national wellness markets from average wellness spend per capita to the wellness market’s contribution to each nation’s overall economy. The research was presented today at…
A new University of Florida study found that meditation done at an intense level caused diverse positive changes in participants’ immune systems. The meditation experience studied was certainly intense: an 8-day retreat with 10-hour daily meditation sessions all conducted in silence. Those retreat participants saw robust activation of their immune systems, with positive changes in 220 immune-related genes–but without activating inflammatory signals. Access this study
A new study in JAMA revealed that for people with less-than-healthy hearts, mental stress beat out physical stress as a predictor of fatal and non-fatal heart attacks and deaths from cardiovascular disease. Patients underwent tests to see how their heart reacted to both physical and mental stress, and those who experienced ischemia (reduced blood flow to the heart muscles) as a reaction to mental stress were much…
A new metareview of 1,000 scientific studies published over the last three decades by the John W. Brick Mental Health Foundation provides conclusive proof of the link between exercise and mental wellness. Overall, roughly 90% of all peer-reviewed published research reports a significant relationship between physical activity and mental health. The 80-page report is filled with findings, from how there is strong evidence for cardiovascular/aerobic exercise in reducing depression (especially high-intensity versions) to…
The largest randomized, controlled, double-blind trial of psilocybin ever (from Compass Pathways) found that a single higher dose led to a rapid and long-lasting decrease in depression symptoms; patients given the highest dose (25 mg) had a significant decline in depression compared to those receiving a microdose of 1 mg. 29% of patients in the highest-dose group were free from depression three weeks after treatment (compared to 7.6% in the control group), and…
