2020 Compendium: Resetting the World with Wellness
GLOBAL WELLNESS INSTITUTE WHITE PAPER SERIES
The Global Wellness Institute (GWI) is working to create a better, healthier and less unjust world in the aftermath of the coronavirus pandemic. Created in collaboration with the Vatican, the White Paper Series is the foundation of the GWI’s movement: Resetting the World with Wellness, which establishes a new vision of the world with wellness at the core.
2020 Compendium: Resetting the World with Wellness
The 2020 Compendium of the GWI’s white paper series, “Resetting the World with Wellness,” explores how a holistic concept of wellness could transform human life, including our workplaces, built environment and mental wellbeing. Each of the eight white papers included in the Compendium considers ideas that have the potential to positively change our world in unprecedented ways.
Individual White Papers Also Available for Download
- A New Vision for a Post COVID-19 Future, by GWI Senior Research Fellows Katherine Johnston and Ophelia Yeung, summarizes the key concepts and practices of wellness and outlines how wellness can provide a roadmap for healing and growth as the world emerges from the pandemic.
- Healthy Built Environments for Healthy People, by GWI Senior Research Fellows Katherine Johnston and Ophelia Yeung, describes how our unhealthy built environment can cause both chronic and infectious diseases, as well as the roles that communities, businesses and governments can play in building healthier homes and communities for healthier people.
- Work, Health and Dignity, by GWI Senior Research Fellows Katherine Johnston and Ophelia Yeung, spotlights how the dangerous, unhealthy, inequitable and stressful work conditions that have been exposed by COVID-19 can spark a collective will for radical change that is necessary to bring health and dignity back to our working lives and workplaces.
- Staying Active, by GWI Senior Research Fellows Katherine Johnston and Ophelia Yeung, examines how the COVID-19 pandemic has worsened the global physical activity crisis; why this decline is causing alarm among the global public health community; and why it is our personal responsibility to incorporate movement into our daily lives.
- Mental Resilience in a Time of Stress and Trauma, by Gerry Bodeker, PhD, Lawrence Choy, MD and Melisse Gelula, looks at how the pandemic is taking a toll on the world’s mental wellbeing and how this acute stress could have a lifelong impact. The white paper also explores how to harness neuroplasticity and wellness approaches to increase stress resilience.
- Human Connection in a Time of Physical Distancing, by Beth McGroarty, VP, Research, GWI, explores how COVID-19 is dramatically worsening the global loneliness crisis; why loneliness is a killer; how we must reject a “digital everything’ world post-pandemic–and what individuals, communities and governments can do to tackle the global loneliness crisis.
- Food as Nourishment for Body, Mind, and Spirit: GWI Senior Research Fellows Katherine Johnston and Ophelia Yeung take a sobering look at why global hunger is a humanitarian crisis; how COVID-19 may double the number of people on the brink of starvation; and why malnutrition, overweight and obesity are eroding wellness. Johnson and Yeung explain how communities and governments can work together to support this essential pillar of wellness–healthy eating.
- Travel and Wonder: Travel has been one of the hardest-hit activities during the COVID-19 pandemic. And travel restrictions in 100% of the world’s destinations have significant psychological and symbolic impacts. GWI Senior Research Fellows Katherine Johnston and Ophelia Yeung explore why the rapid growth of travel has resulted in an unhealthy industry—and how wonder, awe and connection can be wellness-enhancing and help us reconnect with our purpose for travel.
About the Authors
The GWI Resetting the World with Wellness White Paper Series was prepared under the direction of Katherine Johnston and Ophelia Yeung, senior research fellows at the Global Wellness Institute. Together, they have four decades of experience leading research and strategy development for businesses, universities, research institutions, and multilateral and government organizations under the auspices of SRI International, a Silicon Valley-based technology and innovation company. Since 2008, Ms. Johnston and Ms. Yeung have worked with the team at what has become the Global Wellness Institute to pioneer groundbreaking research on the global wellness economy.
For more information about the Global Wellness Institute, click here.
