Does Wellness Tracking Improve Our Wellbeing? Data Privacy Looms as Huge Issue

MONTHLY BAROMETER – WELLNESS EDITION In The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, Shoshana Zuboff makes the case that customers are being reinvented as data sources. This produces anti-democratic asymmetries of knowledge that in turn transform our economies and societies. Her argument will gain traction in 2019, exacerbating the tech backlash and putting the issue of privacy firmly at the core of new laws, regulation and collective…

GWI Unveils a Way for All to Get Involved with The Wellness MoonshotTM

The GWI’s The Wellness MoonshotTM is a global initiative to eradicate the crisis of preventable, chronic diseases. And its next phase was just announced: “The Wellness MoonshotTM Calendar: A Year of Inspiration,” a call to action to create healthier cultures within workplaces everywhere. Participating leaders and companies will receive an inspiring 2019 calendar along with tangible monthly ideas and information to create healthier people and…

Wellness Evidence Study: Screen Time Before Bed Significantly Impairs Children’s Sleep & Quality of Life

A new study from British researchers (on 6,616 children) found that using screens in the hour before bedtime hurts kids’ sleep and quality of life measures. Before-bed screen time was associated with a significantly worse ability to fall asleep as well as waking up too early (60 percent higher odds). And using screens in a dark room led to even worse sleep outcomes than using…

Must-Reads from the Wellness World (Week of February 11, 2019)

Schools in England Introduce a New Subject: Mindfulness – The New York Times, February 4, 2019 The British government has announced that 370 English schools will start to practice mindfulness (relaxation and breathing techniques and other methods to help regulate emotions) in a new initiative and study aimed at addressing the mental health crisis affecting young generations. The study, which runs through 2021, is one…

The Business of Wellness: Wellness Concepts Shaking Up Global Fashion Industry

February is “fashion month,” with Fashion Weeks happening in NYC, London and Milan. And one of the biggest fashion industry shake-ups, according to the Global Wellness Summit’s new 8 Wellness Trends for 2019 report, is how a huge wave of sustainable, ethical, intelligent, healing, more inclusive and meaningful fashion is ahead. We’ll see everything from radical innovation in sustainable textiles to a new generation of…

New Zealand Launches World’s First “Wellbeing Budget”

More and more, wellbeing public policies are being advocated to mitigate the serious risks we collectively face, from social inequalities to climate change. In Davos this year, Jacinda Ardern, New Zealand’s Prime Minister, made this point very vividly when she announced that her government would present in May the world’s very first “wellbeing budget”—a concept originated by the OECD and the IMF that urges countries…