The Global Wellness Institute publishes a compilation every year about the current wellness trends of that year, i.e. which developments and approaches dominate the market. In the past years there has been a tendency of preferring programmes consisting of different treatment series, regular and personalised offers, ideas promoting lifestyle change, which really cause profound change instead of one-off independent treatments.

The most interesting part of this tendency is probably that the concept of transformational wellness therapy is being formed stemming from transformational tale therapy. This is actually a metaphor that incorporates wellness experiences. It starts from the fact that a well-designed wellness program is nothing more than a journey that sometimes challenges people, but it also brings real renewal, profound spiritual and physical changes and provides the possibility of self-discovery. 

The title may sound complicated, but it covers multiple things: its “standard” version means that different experiences form a chain whose elements (episodes) are built upon each other. Massage treatment is followed, for example, by meditation and by excursions and so on. 

Another approach to this is the Six Senses Hotel in Bhutan, which includes lodges of 5 different styles and themes. The purpose of this special design is to stimulate all five senses of visitors and to go back to the local traditions. The Red Mountain Resort in Iceland was inspired by local mythology, and we can get into the world of the hero of the story.

In wellness there is a bigger emphasis on having children, pregnancy, and in particular the preceding period. Researchers are interested in how the life of an unborn child is determined by the lifestyle and the general state of health of the parents before conception. In this area epigenetic research is getting an increasing opinion-forming force, which examines how lifestyle and the environment influence gene expression, what’s more, how this influence can be inherited. Meanwhile the importance of the father during and after the pregnancy in creating a safe and healthy environment is also recognised even more.

In this special period of time, yoga, massage and meditation can help to create physical, psychological and emotional balance, and these tools are becoming more and more widely used to preserve the health of older children and improve their general state of health.

In recent years, cerebral activity has been getting a lot of attention, and researches have been published in the field of how to “optimise” the brain and its performance. In addition to the so-called “smart drugs”, concentration-improving medicines and nutritional supplements, there are clubs where the brain function of the patients is altered by using neuromodulation machines. These machines were originally used to treat nervous system disorders, because they interfere with the behaviour of neurons, but they are also getting more and more attention for improving one’s mood.

Fortunately there are natural methods for “optimising” the brain, and meditation, which has thousands of years of tradition, is of great popularity.  Research has shown that mindfulness meditation is effective not only for improving concentration and one’s mood, but also for the prevention of illness, pain relief and symptom relief for postpartum depression. Is it a natural cure? It’s definitely worth trying.