At the start of 2020, Global Wellness Summit (GWS) published a report outlining ten health and wellness trends that will continue to gain traction over the next year and beyond.
Things like shifting focus from short-term solutions for fatigue and bad sleep to a new focus on circadian health optimization; rethinking mental wellness in app form, and using virtual reality as an exposure therapy tool; even how “energy wellness” practices from the world of eastern medicine will begin to integrate at scale with the western world—such as chakra balancing, reiki, crystal healing, and more.
However, as the coronavirus pandemic continues to throw the entire world off-balance, the start of 2020 feels like lightyears behind us.
While I believe there are many health and wellness trends that will continue to proliferate throughout culture regardless, the coronavirus has certainly revealed several key areas where health and wellness are needed now more than ever.
Here are three trends we are already seeing signs of emerging from this global pandemic, that will pave the way for innovations well into the future.
1. Remote training, coaching, and more.
Anything that can be done remotely, right now, is being given a massive growth opportunity.
If you have been paying attention, near every personal trainer, instructor, wellness coach, etc., is pivoting to running their business online. They are launching websites, they are telling clients to meet them on Zoom, they are live-streaming classes on Instagram, and they are preparing themselves for a future where their job has to be done through a screen.
For context as to the opportunity for remote work, Microsoft Teams (their chat and conferencing app) gained more than 12 million daily users in one week, and Slack has added 2.5 million users in the month of March alone.
Remote work, and remote wellness, is only just beginning.
2. Intravenous nutrition will become more commonly accepted.
A couple years ago, there were only two or three at-home IV service companies that would administer things like vitamin B, amino acid blends, or other specific compounds like Coresatin and L-Carnetine.
Today, there are dozens of these types of intravenous service companies in every major city and even some small towns. The concept of intravenous nutrition and vitamin booster shots is evolving more rapidly than people realize, and these sorts of clinics are even starting to pop up in places like hotels. You can call someone to come to your room at a hotel in say, Miami or Las Vegas, to give you vitamin injections.
The next step here is going to be customers administering these types of vitamins themselves, with hypodermic needles and individual vials. The customer will then follow the instructions and administer their own booster shots or IVs. It should be noted that the opportunity here isn’t just for people looking to boost their own immune systems (as seen throughout this coronavirus pandemic), but also as a business landscape for healthcare companies and service providers to better assist patients suffering from immune disorders and various other diseases.
According to MarketWatch, the U.S. Home Infusion Therapy Market is set to exceed 13.5 billion in the next five years.
3. At-home physical wellness devices and workout equipment.
Peloton. Mirror. Tonal.
The amount of new hardware entering the wellness space designed for at-home use is exploding—and this doesn’t include all the other pieces of hardware designed for recovery (like ice baths) or an infrared sauna.
I have written extensively about some of the “smart machinery” I use at home in my own daily life here. And for a more comprehensive article on the variety of these different machines spearheading the market right now, I recommend reading this article.
All in all, as remote work continues to become more and more commonly accepted (and this stigma has essentially vanished throughout the coronavirus pandemic), and people begin to realize they can work their same jobs but live in a less expensive city, the decision to take care of yourself from home is only going to increase. Combine software with hardware, and you can “feel” like you are attending a competitive fitness class with twenty other people, all without leaving your living room.
