Health & Fitness: Wellness Industry Shakeup of 2015

Phew! 2015 was a big year for health and wellness. Let's look back at the year and check out the best innovations from this rapidly growing and hugely profitable industry. 

Are gym workouts a thing of the past?

This year, workouts like Barre and Soulcycle continued storming the market.

They've developed loyal fan bases thanks to their ability to make health and wellness fun, motivational and inclusive.

The classic gym workout is almost a thing of the past, which is why hotels are offering more flexible, strategic wellness ideas too.

Innovative hotel wellness strategies

Westin hotels now offer local running maps, superfood menus and even thoughtful business amenities to help you move, eat and work well while you’re away. At the Intercontinental, Bruce Ryde told Welltodo London “We want our guests to leave feeling relaxed, rejuvenated, and stress-free. Many of our hotels now offer full service fitness centres that are open 24 hours a day so guests can easily fit a workout into their schedules.” 

W hotels now have a unique partnership with Strala Yoga founder and yogi extraordinaire Tara Stiles to enhance their wellness offerings. “We’ve created an energetic program designed to celebrate the body and provide 24/7 access to an interactive workout that can easily be incorporated into the busiest of jet-setting lifestyles,” says Paul James, Global Brand Leader, W Hotels.

Personalised wellness products

What’s different in the world of wellness now though, is personalisation. Brands are recognising everyone’s different, and everyone has unique goals. Corinna Yap COMO Shambhala Manager at Metropolitan by COMO, Old Park Lane, explains to Welltodo “We understand everyone has a different relationship with wellness, so we think about the little details.”

Hotels aren’t the only ones jumping on board the profitable wellness trend, that sees wellness tourists spending around 130% more than regular tourists. The Global Wellness Summit has tipped airports to join in by offering innovative strategies too.

Thankfully, after encouragement from those of us who blend wellness with our medical backgrounds, many wellness strategies are being backed by science. The Global Wellness Summit even has an evidence-based medicine portal for wellness therapies where anyone can read the latest evidence on anything from acupuncture to weight loss.

By offering a delicate balance of holistic medicine and science, brands have created relatable wellness products that are more trustworthy and reliable.

What I learned as a Wellness Professional in 2015

After launching Aprivé Wellness in 2015 from years of experience, I can say I’ve learned just how important wellness is to many people thanks to the overwhelmingly positive response to my brand. As a physiotherapist and wellness professional, my mission is to make wellness fun and inspiring and all the products I design utilise evidence-based science to help inform the health and wellbeing choices of people like you. 

I’m so incredibly excited to see how the wellness industry continues to develop in 2016, and I look forward to building new partnerships with amazing people and brands to help innovation, evidence and inspiration become regular features of worldwide wellness.

Thank you so much for all your support in 2015, and Merry Christmas and Happy holidays to you all!

-Caitlin xo

Queenstown Weddings: Exclusive New Service

Bespoke Wellness Experiences for Bridal Parties

Imagine gazing over a breathtaking canyon as a crystal clear river runs far below as you gently transition through your sun salutation. Surrounded by your best friends, this yoga class is the first time you’ve been able to relax and take a deep breath since your wedding planning began. Not only is it deeply calming sprinkled with lots of laughs, this special experience has given you and your friends an exclusive birds eye view of Queenstown landscape few people will ever see.

If you’re getting married in Queenstown, you’re probably so excited to hang out with your friends and family, but not sure exactly what you should do!

This beautiful mountain town has so many incredible activities from the Shotover Jet to bungy jumping, winery tours and everything in between. I’m excited to introduce the newest Queenstown activity for brides and bridal parties: Bespoke Wellness Retreats by Aprivé Wellness.

Whether you wish to have a fun yoga or Pilates class (or both!) followed by some laid back relaxation and meditation, a nutrition workshop, spa session, massage or wine tour, you can choose exactly how you wish to spend this special day of wellness and indulgence.

Destination Weddings in Queenstown

Wedding stress happens to the most laid back brides, but sometimes it threatens to ruin your destination wedding experience. A destination wedding involves every worry for a bride from looking after family members to finding venues and battling Queenstown’s ever-changing weather. By indulging in a half day, full day or overnight wellness retreat with you friends and family, everyone can take a breath and relax into the luscious beauty of this mountain town, plus have lots of laughs and a whole lot of fun.

Your bespoke wellness experience is designed just for you, and can include whatever you wish. If you’re a hardcore health nut and want a day packed full of yoga, hiking, stretching, Pilates and a healthy lunch, I can create a luxury version just for you.

If you’re more into balanced wellness, I can create a fun day for you and your friends with relaxed yogalates, meditation, herbal tea and spa relaxation finished with some local wine tasting.

Don’t let wedding stress ruin the lead up to your special day. Let me organise a beautiful, inspiring and happy day for you and your friends so you can recharge and rejuvenate for your wedding day.

Accidentally Anxious Part 2

How to sleep better

After a busy day at the office, unwinding in front of an episode of your favorite Netflix show is hard to resist. Unfortunately, the backlit screen, the moving digital images and the stimulation of a particularly violent episode of Game of Thrones (for example) keep your brain working overtime. Sure, you might fall asleep in front of the screen, but it’s likely to take longer and your mind won’t have the time to unwind in the process. Wellness pros recommend avoiding screens two hours before bed to help you fall asleep faster and sleep better. 

Try This: Sleeping longer is key too. It turns out that your body doesn’t run well on six hours a night, so grab a nonviolent book and head to bed half an hour earlier this week. In a month, try going to bed another half hour earlier, and soon you’ll be getting eight hours of shuteye.

Wellness Retreat Special Offer - 1 Week to Go

The early bird gets the worm: In this case the worm is a special rate on our exciting Jan 16th Wellness Retreat in Queenstown, New Zealand!

YOUR DAY INCLUDES

YOGA PILATES FUSION CLASS

NUTRITION WORKSHOP WITH MICHELLE OF QT NUTRITION

HEALTHY LUNCH

MEDITATION & MOTIVATIONAL GOAL SETTING SESSION

LUXURY RELAXATION AT NUGGET POINT SPA

The holidays can be stressful, so recharge your batteries with this fun, inspiring day. You’ll leave with evidence-based, motivational strategies to help you live a happier, healthier life in 2016!

The early bird price of $120 will expire on December 16th - so get in now to pay this special rate.

Accidentally Anxious Part 1

My article for US activewear and wellness hub Live the Process is live!

Below is the first part of this important article, enjoy!

-Caitlin xo

Although we may not always realize it, many of us are stuck in a cycle of perpetual anxiety.

Between being swamped at work, juggling relationships and trying to maintain our health and well-being, our anxiety rates are increasing—affecting as much as 10 percent of the population in Western countries.

How can we combat this problem?

Our Busy Lifestyles

Everyone is busy. Whether you’re a single, working man juggling dating, friends, the gym and work or a working mum, busy with that set of a million responsibilities, no one has time. Or do we?

Health and wellness thought leaders are pointing to “perceived urgency” as the culprit of anxiety caused by busyness.

Creating endless “to-do” lists, making unrealistic commitments to relationships and friends and trying to cram in too many yoga classes or appointments leaves you feeling overwhelmed and unsuccessful because you can’t live up to your own expectations. Add to that the unrealistic demands of bosses and clients based on the trend of “next day delivery” and we’re all left gasping for air. If everything is urgent, nothing can ever be prioritized, and the list is never finished.

Try This: Instead of an endless to-do list, prioritize only three urgent tasks and leave the rest for another day. You’re likely to actually manage that amount of responsibility, which helps relieve the mental stress of a streaming to-do list.

Don't wait for a health scare: Invest in your own Wellness

We all know how to be healthy right? Wrong! If we did, the world's leading killer wouldn't be a preventable disease. It turns out few people understand actionable ways to live healthy, and even fewer are motivated to do it. 

If more money was spent on public health campaigns and providing handy, meaningful health tips to help people live better, fewer people might end up suffering from with the world’s leading killer: cardiovascular disease.

How can increasing government spending on wellness help?

The more actionable, useful steps people learned about their health and wellbeing, the few hospital admission would result which means saving money for the government!

Consider these stats:

• 68% of deaths around the world are from noncommunicable diseases (87% in high-income countries) mostly cardiovascular diseases, cancers, diabetes and chronic lung diseases.

• The most common cause of death around the world is cardiovascular disease: 3 in every 10 deaths. Of these, 7.4 million people died of ischaemic heart disease and 6.7 million from stroke.

Ischaemic heart disease means the heart isn’t able to get enough blood because of a blockage in an artery. Stroke, basically, means the same thing, but an artery to the brain is blocked. These blockages are caused by the build up of plaque containing cholesterol, calcium and fibrous tissue. Sounds gross right? These plaques are mostly formed from eating too much saturated fat, although trans fat and cholesterol contributes too. 

So! Now we’ve got the science out of the way, we know 2 basic things:

1. The most common cause of death in the world is from a disease caused by eating crappy food

2. Most healthcare investment is spent on being able to stent open your clogged artery, rather than preventing it getting clogged in the first place.

 

Consider this:

If you were sitting at your desk with a cup of hot coffee near the edge, would you get a wet sponge ready in case you knocked it over? Or would you move your mug away from the edge?

What action would you take first?

Healthcare spending is back to front

As it stands now, Western governments prioritise healthcare spending in a paradoxical way. As Professor Marc Cohen of RMIT University mentioned in his presentation on The Multiple Dimensions of Wellness, the highest spending goes first to intensive care, then acute care, then general care, and last to wellness. After working in multiple ICU departments many years ago during my rounds as a Physiotherapy student, I know how many machines and clever high tech innovations are used there, so I can see how expensive they must be. However, this pyramid of spending does make you wonder: What if it were reversed?

What if healthcare spending was swapped around, with the highest investment poured into wellness, then general health, then acute care, and lastly, ICU? If more money was invested in educating the public about key, evidence-based strategies to maintaining health and wellbeing, the spending needed on acute care would be less. Anti-smoking campaigns save the government billions of dollars every year, yet actionable, useful public health messages are increasingly rare. 

Don't wait for a health scare to start living better

Until healthcare spending habits change though, you can take your valuable health into your own hands.

Invest in your daily wellness. Don’t wait for your first heart attack to be told how to live better.

You know what to do, but can’t seem to do it

If you’re struggling to make headway and just can’t seem to embrace healthy habits, get help! There are so many brilliant health and wellness coaches around to create steps you can tick off everyday to help you achieve your goals, and keep you out of the ICU.

Be careful what health tips you read

When looking for advice and tips on healthy living and wellness, please always question the validity of the source. Media articles will say if they’re written by a health professional and have reference marks if they quote evidence. If what you’re reading is written by a staff writer, beware! And I say this with the utmost love for writers as I’ve worked as a write myself for some big name publications.

But! Magazines and online newspapers need a certain amount of content everyday, and they don’t always include valid science-based articles.  Read from trusted sites, and find a qualified health professional you know has industry experience and knowledge to back up their articles.

Don't wait until you're in hospital to be motivated, and educated on how to live better. Do it now!