COVID-19 has inexorably changed the way we view density and urbanization. CatchOn, a Finn Partners company and a leading communications and market research practice, asked 20 architects, designers, urban planners and environmentalists what we now need to focus on if we want to build more viable and healthy cities, neighborhoods and communities in the future. Their 20 reflections present dozens of ideas on the post-pandemic…
The GWI’s latest “Wellness in the Age of COVID-19” Q&A is with death experts and “dying well” activists Dr. Candi Cann, associate professor of religion, Baylor University, and Liz Eddy, CEO of Lantern, a public benefit corporation that provides a single source of guidance for navigating a death. They discuss: How COVID-19 has exposed what is broken in our culture around grief and dying: from…
Employment is one of the most important determinants of wellbeing, and conversely, unemployment has a strong deleterious effect on our wellbeing (studies examining mental health during lockdown conclude that those forced to leave paid work suffered much more than those who remained fully or partially employed or were furloughed). The repercussions of unemployment go well beyond the loss of income. It affects not only the…
A major new study from the NIH (10,123 US teens) is the first to show that exposure to outdoor, artificial light at night negatively impacts teens’ mental health and sleep. Teens exposed to higher levels of nighttime light are more likely to have a mood disorder (including anxiety and bipolar disorder and phobias). This adds to the evidence that disruptions to circadian rhythms contribute to…
A surprising winner of the pandemic might be a sugar tax in the UK. Several articles in the British media suggest that Prime Minister Boris Johnson is now convinced that being overweight was a decisive factor in the severity of the COVID-19 he suffered, and that led him to an intensive-care unit. This observation linking excess weight with an aggravated condition of COVID-19 sufferers is…
“There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen”—although an overused quote during the pandemic, COVID-19 has proven Lenin right. It’s been and will continue to be a formidable accelerator and catalyst of existing trends. Here are several trends in the wellness space being fed by systemic connectivity. One overarching trend that will enormously benefit wellbeing in the post-pandemic era: COVID-19…
