From Mushrooms to Femtech: New Trends in Wellness and Travel for 2018

by Editor
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Each year, the Global Wellness Summit identifies trends that will have a meaningful impact on the wellness industry, as people worldwide take more control of their own health and wellness. Here are some of the 2018 wellness and travel trends already taking shape.

Trend: Mushrooms Emerge from Underground

Whether “magic” or medicinal, more people are exploring the unique medicine these fungi provide us, possibly even proving “‘better than existing treatments’ for anxiety, depression and addiction.” There’s a legalization movement in play for magical varieties, with experts predicting they will be legalized medicine within five years.

Example:
MycoMeditations (mycomeditations.com) offers psilocybin-assisted retreats in Jamaica for those looking for a “middle ground between the intuitive and the intellectual.” Psilocybin is a psychedelic mushroom said to initiate deep psychological healing and self-discovery.

Guests are encouraged to stay for a minimum of six nights to work with psilocybin several times and allow for processing and integration. Retreats feature lodging, authentic Jamaican meals, herbal steam and massage sessions, guided hikes and ethnomycological teachings on gourmet, medicinal and psychoactive fungi.

Trend: Extreme Wellness

“Hacking” our way to better brains and bodies is on the rise, with an increase in brain-optimizing nootropics and personalized precision wellness combining DNA, epigenetic and microbiome testing.

The goal? Re-wiring ourselves to achieve the (once deemed) impossible. More people are gearing to train like an Olympic athlete or tough out extreme “mind over matter” workshops. And new luxury travel escapes are popping up to challenge body and mind – like being dropped into the wilderness to fend for yourself.

Example:
The “Ice Man” Wim Hof’s workshops and expeditions in Switzerland (wimhofmethod.com) use cold therapy and breathwork to master immune and autonomic nervous systems. Participants report everything from better sleep to increased willpower and enhanced creativity.

Catering to those who are looking for the ultimate Wim Hof Method experience, the biannual Expeditions offer training by experienced mentors in natural environments. The summer expedition takes place in the heart of the Spanish Pyrenees and is centred around mastering the three pillars of the Wim Hof Method: breathing technique, cold exposure, and cultivating a mindset that allows you to incorporate these into your daily life.

Trend: Getting our “Clean Air Act” Together

“Over 90% of the world’s population now breathe air that violates air quality guidelines: countries like China and India are smothered in toxic air, while the (energy efficient) airtight buildings in developed nations can prove just as deadly.” As governments debate and argue over legislation, more of us are taking personal responsibility for the air we breathe, using plants to enhance indoor air quality and embracing salt therapy and breathwork training.

Example:
In addition to Finnish Lapland, the World Health Organisation calls out Norman Wells, Canada, Campisábalos, Spain, and Converse County, United States as the best clean air localities in the world.

You can travel the stunning Arctic wilderness of Finnish Lapland (visitfinland.com) on foot or by bike or a “lung-cleansing” getaway, where national parks showcase the unique characteristics of the area – virgin forests reaching quietly to the sky, lakes glimmering in a thousand shades of blue, and the wilderness of the Lapland fells.

Watch out for more tourism boards promoting the clean air benefits of their destinations in future as a huge 2018 wellness trend.

Trend: A New Feminist Wellness


“2017 was a year of attacks on, and fighting back, by women: the U.S. presidential administration threatening women’s rights, the 5 million-strong global Women’s March, Harvey Weinstein, MeToo, the exposure of the Silicon Valley boys club. #Resist and #thefutureisfemale became global movements, and “feminism” was rightly named the word of the year…With this confluence of forces, we predict new intersections between women’s empowerment, feminism and wellness in 2018.”

From women-only co-working spaces and collectives to the wave of FemTech—women doctors and technologists“solving” for women’s actual bodies and apps that put fertility and hormone tracking in women’s hands—by women, for women, wellness solutions will march strong.

Example:
“Painmoons” – wellness retreats providing women with emotional healing after divorce, grief, anger, loss of sexual happiness and more, aimed at empowering and supporting women – are appearing on a global scale, designed and facilitated by women.

One example is The Women of Color Healing Retreats (womenofcolorhealingretreats.com) in Costa Rica, created out of the desire to connect women with nature and provide a space of “learning, healing, and nurturing that so often alludes black women.” The retreats welcome black women of all religions, languages, and ages, with the intention that a quote from Audre Lorde so beautifully explains, “Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation and that is an act of political warfare.”

Trends from the report “2018 Wellness Trends, from Global Wellness Summit.” Download your copy at globalwellnesssummit.com.

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