7 Trends in Wellness to Know

The beginning of a new year is filled with resolutions, vision boards, and programs designed to help you lose weight, detox, or set SMART goals. With all of the info out there geared towards bettering yourself, achieving your goals, and “living your best life” it’s hard to keep up. To help with some trends in the wellness industry, I’ve compiled a list of seven trends to watch for this year.

7. Brain health

Our level of brain fitness is heavily influenced by our external environment. Healthy habits like getting a good night’s rest, exercise, diet, and mental stimulation all help to maintain optimal brain fitness. Alternatively, factors like stress, anxiety, and aging can all have a negative impact on brain fitness, but there are plenty of ways to boost cognition. Brain fitness exercises can help delay or prevent cognitive decline, increase memory, improve mental clarity, and so much more. The last couple of years have proven to be quite difficult as we’ve had to navigate these unchartered waters and new political landscape. 2019 will continue to offer new challenges and we owe it to ourselves to be as sharp and mentally prepared as possible.

6. CBD oil

As consumers look for alternatives to painkillers, more and more people are turning to CBD hemp oil. With the legalization of marijuana for both medical and recreational use in more than 30 states, it’s no wonder people are flocking to this more natural remedy to alleviate pain. There’s growing research on the positive effects of CBD oil in mood disorders, epilepsy, chronic pain, and lowering inflammation just to name a few. CBD oil works by acting on your body’s endocannabinoid system whose job it is to maintain homeostasis and assist with dealing with external stressors. While you should check with you physician before choosing to take CBD oil, the World Health Organization recently stated that CBD oil was safe for almost everyone.

5. Social media fasts

Sometimes you just have to log-off, deactivate, and unplug from social media. Social media can be great, but it’s been linked to FOMO (fear of missing out) and research shows that it can play on our deepest emotions that lead to us feeling anxious, inadequate or insecure. Stepping away from social media allows for us to spend more time working towards goals or allowing for more quality time spent with loved ones. Make sure that you’re not allowing yourself to be triggered by your timeline and step away.

4. It’s not all about the grind — get some rest

You’d think it’d be obvious, but in this culture of “hustle hard” and “securing the bag,” many have easily chosen to forego sleep. To operate at maximum capacity, it’s important that we allow our bodies to decompress from the activities and stressors from the previous day by getting an adequate amount of rest. When we don’t, we subject ourselves to potentially feeling tired, extended levels of stress, and other negative health effects due to hormonal imbalance. Scheduling time in our daily lives to power down from emails, texts, electronics and other stimuli can help us to wind down. If that doesn’t help, taking a leisure walk in the evening right before sunset can help you relax and get your body back on its normal cycle so that you can wake-up feeling refreshed and rejuvenated.

3. More alternative medicines

As more and more people pull away from trends and look for more sound medicinal practices and therapies, we will continue to see an embrace of systems such as Ayurveda, Traditional Chinese Medicine, that incorporate things such as acupuncture and yoga.

2. Financial Wellness

A recent focus is looking at how finances influence our daily lives beyond paying bills and buying groceries. Financial wellness looks at how behaviors directly impact our financial wellbeing and can lead to an inability to pay for emergencies, save up for retirement or other major milestones. Research has shown how “being broke” negatively impacts productivity at work, stress levels, and increases healthcare costs. Financial wellness also involves ensuring that your financial affairs are in order like having adequate life insurance and starting a sound investment portfolio. Assessing your finances or speaking with a financial planner or coach will help to face fears, plan for the future and hopefully achieve your hopes and dreams.

1. Yes, going green is still cool

The evidence that the climate is changing is insurmountable and continues to grow daily. The future of our planet affects all of us and as a result, people are getting even more serious about taking accountability and playing their role in positively impacting change. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) published a report stating that in order to prevent global warming from getting worse, we need to reduce the degrees Celsius number below 1.5, and we are currently at about 1 degree Celsius. If we exceed 1.5 degrees Celsius, then the climate would be damaged beyond repair as soon as 2030. News like this has motivated people to take individual actions like reducing or omitting plastic use, recycling more, and limiting food waste. Traction is growing and the urgency to address this problem from both a personal and industry level will prove to be beneficial for our planet as we continue to go green.