Global Wellness Institute

“The Workplace Is Killing People and Nobody Cares” – Insights by Stanford Business, March 15, 2018

This is an interview with Jeffrey Pfeffer, the author of “Dying for a Paycheck”: a new book that examines the massive health care toll that today’s work culture exacts on employees. Pfeffer argues that the current work culture is harming both company performance and individual wellbeing. Job engagement is low; distrust in management high; and job satisfaction in continual decline. His book focuses on the U.S., but the problem is global.

New studies, including the OECD (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development) Better Life Index and 2018 Environmental Performance Index, show that when it comes wellness – and government, workplace and environmental policy – European nations are often way out in front.

A new study, led by Dr. Alia Crum (2017 Global Wellness Summit keynote speaker and head of the Mind & Body Lab at Stanford University), indicates that our beliefs (even if inaccurate) about how much we exercise may have a significant impact on our health and longevity.

The GWI’s Wellness Moonshot: A World Free of Preventable Disease was announced at the 2017 Global Wellness Summit, and leading medical experts – from Dr. Andrew Weil to Dr. Mehmet Oz – were asked which one thing they think could help make this ambitious goal a reality – and have the biggest impact on reversing the alarming rates of chronic disease.

“How Companies Scour Our Digital Lives for Clues to Our Health” – The New York Times, February 25, 2018. Your digital footprint — how often you post on social media or how frequently you check your phone late at night — could hold clues to your physical and mental health. And this is the theory behind an emerging field, digital phenotyping, that is trying to assess people’s well-being based on their interactions with digital devices.