Global Wellness Institute

On January 1st, a new law in France requires companies with more than 50 employees to start negotiations defining the rights of employees to ignore emails and smartphones in the evenings, on weekends and during vacations. Given the damage that our “always-on” work culture wreaks in terms of burnout, should the “right to disconnect” be legislated? Watch this space: this will become a prominent global issue in 2017.

A new study from Longborough University, UK (studying 63,591 people) found that the “weekend warrior” exerciser (compressing weekly exercise into a couple of workouts) lessened the risk of early death as much as those who do frequent workouts throughout the week. And people that exercised in any amount were 29 percent less likely to die prematurely. 

Researchers at Australia’s RMIT University are conducting the first-ever survey that explores the characteristics and experiences of people, who sauna regularly. If you have used a sauna in the past three months, please take their survey now: www.saunasurvey.org.

The Best Music for Productivity? Silence – The Atlantic, December 8, 2016

Studies show that for most types of cognitively demanding tasks, anything but quiet hurts performance (and the more engaging the music is, the worse it is for concentration).

Artificial Intelligence is the transformative technology of the 21st century, and a major issue to watch will be how A.I. and big data will dramatically impact health and wellbeing. The developments are creating incredible excitement, but also some serious privacy and security issues. 

The current “polar scare” (arctic temperatures are 20 degrees higher than normal) is one more sign that climate change is happening radically faster than anticipated. Malleret argues we are at a tipping point, and all industries—from agriculture to wellness tourism to fashion—will be impacted.