This week was the Global Wellness Institute’s annual trends press event in NYC. (Next week I’ll share some of what was presented.) The singular mega-trend in wellness that I have observed over the last few years has been the intersection of science, medicine, and wellness practices which has exploded in popular culture. The interest which non-medical people now have in the biological sciences is astonishing. Peter Attia, Rhonda Patrick and Andrew Huberman have become, if not Taylor Swift popular, at least part of the current cultural zeitgeist. As evidence, I have heard NYC taxi drivers listening to them. Only five years ago, this sort of thing was known only to a small group of enthusiasts. This new popular interest in human biology, and in our overall wellness, is producing a massive growth industry. Increasingly, we will be seeing medically-based wellness facilities in malls alongside the Gap. Much of this will not be equally distributed — being hyper rich of course gives one access to extraordinary technology, but what was emphasized at GWI, and what we hear from almost every SuperAge podcast guest, is that the most impactful things we can all do are either low cost or no cost, and unless we have these things dialed in, no amount of the expensive exotic stuff is going to be all that helpful.
There seems to be a growing part of the population who know about and engage in things like sauna, cold plunge, and nutrient-based eating. This just didn’t exist even a few years ago. At my gym in Park City, there is now sometimes a line to use the sauna. It is 190 degrees in there! There are often members chatting in the icy waters of that same gym’s outdoor pool. Here in my building in NY, on a weekend night, there are groups of young people doing the same thing at the sauna and cold plunge. When I was that age, doing any of this was just not on the menu. It was beer, pool, and bad rock music — nothing wrong with that, it was just that health amplification was not part of my young life. These new trends are clearly not just for people our age; this is an all-ages thing. Maybe it is TikTok pushing this, who knows, but this new wellness movement, although still a minority, is not fringe in the way some people may assume it is.
One of the fundamental puzzlements of being this age is: What is the right level of maintenance? We mostly never expected to be the way we are at this age. How much fitness, how much attention to sleep, how much time with friends, how much attention to food, sunblock everywhere always, or even what is appropriate to wear after what age? That last one is a doozy. There are extremes everywhere that get all the attention; Bryan Johnson, for instance, or the woman who recently broke some lunatic record for ice bathing: 3 hours. The problem is not the spectacle, it is in judging the spectacle and then falling automatically into opposition to doing anything at all. For the most part, this wellness train is a great thing and, at least what I have seen, most of it has been very positive: time in nature, getting good sleep, hot/cold challenges with friends? It all seems pretty good to me. Let’s stay sensible, stay with moderation, keep an open mind while finding what works for each of us; especially that open-mind part.
Onward and upward,
David
