Susie Ellis offers up a “workplace wellness reality check”: While the media revels in detailing the workplace wellness “playgrounds” of privileged tech startups – with their stand-up treadmill desks and executive retreats with mindfulness gurus – the facts are that the average global worker is simply getting sicker, older and more stressed. Read her new Huffington Post article on why we need to stop focusing on the “well few” and the cutting-edge workplace wellness “outliers,” and digest the facts about just how unwell the world’s workers are – so we can do something about it.
Weekly Routine of Yoga + Meditation Could Fight Off Age-Related Mental Decline
A new UCLA study found that a weekly regime of yoga and meditation could forestall age-related mental decline. They tested older adults with memory issues: one group did an established brain-training program (with classroom time and mental exercises), while the other did Kundalini yoga and Kirtan Kriya meditation (involving repeating a mantra and “dancing” with repetitive hand movements). Cognitive and brain-scanning tests showed that all groups performed better on thinking tests, but the yoga and meditation group had significantly better mood improvement, visuospatial memory, and more communication between parts of the brain that control attention and focus. The UCLA professor heading up the study reported, “We were a bit surprised by the magnitude of the brain effects.”
Must-Reads from the Wellness World (Week of June 13, 2016)
“Retiring (the idea of) retirement”
– Nautilus, May 26, 2016
This inspiring article shows why the common wisdom (or “narrative”…) about aging may be off the mark. Often, global aging is described as a “cataclysmic” process, bound to bring economic misery and societal upheaval. Not quite true! As one academic says: “Today’s seniors are healthier, better educated and more productive than ever.” It is the word “productive” that matters here. Gaining more active years free of debilitating illness will change the economics of aging.
Spa Industry People – Please Take This Important Survey!
The Global Wellness Institute is updating all the global wellness economy numbers and is now running a survey on the spa industry. If you are in the spa world, PLEASE help your industry by taking this important survey.
Why Does the World Persist in Confusing Medical Tourism and Wellness Tourism?
In this letter from GWI Chairman and CEO, Susie Ellis, Ellis notes that there is constant, fresh evidence that the world still doesn’t totally understand that wellness tourism is something wildly different from medical tourism. She discusses the costs of mixing up these entirely separate, unique “tourisms” – for medical professionals, the wellness industry, and above all else, the consumer.
Steve Case: Future Entrepreneurs Will Need to Work with Governments
Malleret discusses insights from Steve Case’s just-published The Third Wave. Although it’s fashionable among investors and the tech set to deride the role of the public sector, he predicts that successful businesses of the future (whether tech, wellness, etc.) will have to figure out a way to work with governments. Case also predicts that today’s fitness trackers will look rudimentary, as future hardware/software will allow users to collect and save all vital sign data – alerting doctors and patients when something’s amiss. Malleret ponders two implications: when all this data about people’s health status/habits is transparent, how will governments regulate their use and what will they do with it to promote healthier behaviors? Also. is there a bubble brewing in some corners of the wellness industry – i.e., low-margin fitness trackers?
