What's Changing? - Wellbeing

Please see below selected recent wellbeing-related change.

See also:

November 2024

The wellness industry grew by 25% globally, to US$6.32tn from 2019 to 2023. The Global Wellness Institute (GWI) attributed the growth to a pandemic-era focus on health and wellbeing, and an ageing population. The biggest sector is “self-care”, while the fastest-growing is commercial and private property including gyms and buildings designed with the health of occupants in mind. The GWI believes the industry has grown so much because of consumers focusing on health as a result of the pandemic.

May 2024

Jan-Emmanuel De Neve and George Ward at the University of Oxford, and Micah Kaats at Harvard University found that higher levels of staff wellbeing in companies generally predicted higher firm valuations, higher return on assets, higher gross profits, and better stock market performance. Their analysis found that companies with greater profitability and higher stock market performance tended to have staff who cited greater happiness, purpose and job satisfaction.
While many studies have highlighted the negative impacts of spending time online, research now suggests that using the internet has a strong link to positive wellbeing, unless you're a young woman. Academics at the University of Oxford and Tilburg University looked at data on 2.4 million people aged 15 to 99 over 16 years in 168 countries and modelled this against eight wellbeing indicators, including life satisfaction, daily experiences, social and physical wellbeing. They found that those who used the internet had better physical and mental health than those who avoided it. The negative link for women aged 15 to 24 was consistent with other research on cyberbullying and linking social media to depression, the researchers said.

April 2024

Vivek Murthy, America’s surgeon general, spoke about the link between social disconnectedness and depression, and the way in which serving others can alleviate this. Murthy argued that young people needed to be given a new definition of success, one less connected with the acquisition of fame and fortune and more with contributing to the world. This would not only help those around them, but enhance their own happiness and wellbeing too.

March 2024

The wealth of a country does not necessarily equate to a population that is socially, mentally, and physically well. This includes not just adults but children, where issues related to poverty and pollution threaten their social well-being, physical health, and opportunities to gain new skills. A report produced by UNICEF found that suicide, unhappiness, obesity, and poor social and academic skills are common among youth ages 5 to 19 in some of the world’s richest countries, which struggle with young people’s development of reading and math skills, mental well-being, and obesity.

January 2024

Purposeful living is believed to be a significant contributor to overall wellbeing, and research has shown that stronger well-being is related to the reduced expression of genes that code for inflammation and with reduced cortisol levels, the hormone responsible for stress. Evidence exists, too, that higher levels of inflammatory proteins are associated with increased mortality. It could be that having no purpose in one’s life leads to chronically higher levels of chronic inflammation, which is involved in a a number of serious conditions, like coronary artery disease, diabetes, Alzheimer’s, and cancer.
Over half of UK employers have adopted formal staff wellbeing strategies, which often offer perks like mindfulness apps, yoga classes, life coaching and stress management training. However, a study published by the Industrial Relations Journal found that, across multiple subjective wellbeing indicators, employees who participated in individual-level mental wellbeing interventions appeared no better off than employees who did not. This result was consistent across different types of workers and sectors.
University of Oxford researchers surveyed over 45,000 British workers and found that most individual-level mental wellbeing interventions, including access to meditation apps and in-office workshops on burnout and resilience, don’t necessarily impact how workers feel about their sense of purpose, belonging or productivity. There is one notable exception: Time off to volunteer positively correlated with higher levels of wellbeing. A separate Gallup survey shows the wellbeing perks employees want include limiting work outside of typical hours, implementing a shorter workweek and incorporating mental health days.

December 2023

Employers report that providing mental healthcare helps minimise absence and prevent long-term illness. Surveys suggest that workers now place significant emphasis on mental health support when choosing their employer: 81% told a Harris poll that it will be “an important consideration” in their next job search. However, not everyone sees this as positive. The Economist warned in a leader that awareness campaigns were leading people to “conflate normal responses to life’s difficulties with mental-health disorders”.
The most powerful factor determining an employee’s emotional well-being is their manager, reported The Economic Times, citing a survey by Boston Consulting Group. More than 56% of the employees surveyed said that strong dissatisfaction with managers was linked to them feeling dissatisfied at work. Great managers account for a 72% reduction in attrition risk, a 3.2x increase in employee retention, and a 13.9x increase in satisfaction.

November 2023

Today science is validating what gardeners have known for hundreds of years. One of the largest studies to date on gardens and gardening, by the National Institute for Health Research, found that the benefits of gardening were similar to the difference in health between the wealthiest people and the poorest people in the country. It reduces stress, lowers blood pressure, promotes feelings of mastery, accomplishment and competence, higher levels of self-efficacy, self-esteem, and psychological wellbeing.

October 2023

Along with improving our quality of life, green spaces can help to make us physically healthier and improve our mental wellbeing. Nature alleviates stress, stabilises blood pressure and treats anxiety and depression. Its effects have reportedly even been shown to increase anti-cancer cells, reduce the incidence of underweight births, and accelerate recovery from surgery.

September 2023

Sobremesa is a Spanish word that represents a Spanish tradition. On the one hand, it’s simply the physical act of staying at the table after your dinner and talking. But, more than that, it’s about committing to those friends and family who are there, making space for those people in your busy day. Sobremesa is a mindset that pushes aside all the other things you “have” to or “need” to do and instead relaxing with those around you, noted Big Think.

June 2023

The School of Life believes that mental wellbeing is the consequence of what sounds like a simple process, but is in fact an enormously and complicated one: feeling what we actually feel as close as possible to the moment we actually feel it – and then being able to express our state of mind either to ourselves or to another without shame or significant distortion. A so-called ‘well-adjusted mind’ is one that can, in a variety of situations, minimise the distance between what it feels and what it knows it feels, between the emotions that flood it and those that consciousness can register.
A 2023 study by Edelman revealed that 83% of consumers expect the healthcare industry to play a significant role in making sure they are as healthy as possible, closely followed by the food and beverage (77%), tech (74%), retail (64%) and finance (60%) industries.

May 2023

Work-related stress can have a major impact on our wellbeing. Analysis by Axa UK and the Centre of Economic and Business Research showed that work-related stress and burnout is resulting in 23.3m sick days a year and is costing the UK economy £28bn a year.

March 2023

The most common measure of wellbeing is, “Overall, how satisfied are you with your life these days?” on a 0-10 scale. For people who report 5 or below, the biggest causes are not poverty, but mental illness, physical sickness, loneliness and bad work. Such findings have huge implications, both for government and for business. For government they point to the imperative that all policies, new and old, should be tested to see whether they generate enough human wellbeing relative to their net cost to the state, believes economist Richard Layard.

February 2023

Strong social networks and physical activity in midlife can help prevent long-term health conditions further down the line, according to two research papers. The first study found that satisfying interpersonal relationships with colleagues, friends, parents and relatives were linked to a lower risk of suffering from several conditions in old age. Findings from the second study suggest that regular exercise throughout adulthood was related to preserving mental acuity and memory and could help keep conditions such as dementia at bay.

December 2022

Further reading:

September 2022

Drawing on the ideas of the philosopher and political economist John Stuart Mill, Kryzystof Pelc, an associate professor of political science at McGill University in Canada, suggests that beyond a certain stage of material comfort, the things that seem to make life worth living cannot be arrived at instrumentally. They are but by-products of pursuing other ends. Yet our whole mode of doing politics and policy in advanced economies is based on the opposite view: growth is treated as a rough proxy for increases to overall wellbeing. The FT argues that his point is that this focus may be misplaced - actual wellbeing is completely divorced from any purposeful effort to create it.

July 2022

HBR expressed concern that an over-emphasis on self-care may undermine, rather than support, wellness. The crux of the problem lies in the fact that human well-being is not achieved alone: our psychological health is grounded in attachment to and acceptance by others. We are, essentially, social animals. In fact, recent studies suggest that feeling disconnected from others is as significant a health risk as smoking, excessive alcohol consumption, and a lack of physical activity.

June 2022

Gallup Inc., the world’s most experienced polling organization, set out to determine what makes people happy. Gallup professionals dissect the organisation’s complex research findings and found that real wellbeing derives from combining earnings, physical fitness, an active social life, a good job and strong community ties.
In 2020, the world's employees saw an increase in negative emotions, such as stress, worry, anger and sadness. In 2021, worry, anger and sadness did not return to pre-pandemic levels, and stress continued to climb to a new high - 44% of employees said they experienced stress during a lot of the previous day.
McKinsey analysis of the reasons why employees are leaving their jobs in record numbers (the Great Attrition, or what many call the Great Resignation) showed that the most important factors were wellbeing-related, social and psychological, including not feeling valued by their organisation or manager or not having a sense of belonging at work.
Further reading:

April 2022

Research suggested employees’ wellbeing can fall after they change their work. In a survey of thousands, job change was linked to decreased job satisfaction and vitality and increased work-family conflicts. Job change had no significant effect on people's sense of belonging.
Gallup defines wellbeing through the five essential elements:
- Career wellbeing: You like what you do every day.
- Social wellbeing: You have meaningful friendships in your life.
- Financial wellbeing: You manage your money well.
- Physical wellbeing: You have energy to get things done.
- Community wellbeing: You like where you live.

November 2021

The Global Wellness Institute valued the worldwide market in everything from complementary therapies to the spa economy at US $4.5tn. However, André Spicer, professor of organisational behaviour at Bayes Business School and co-author of The Wellness Syndrome, claimed that consumption of many wellness offerings correlates strongly with being rich. “To engage . . . takes a huge amount of money, and of time,” he says. Poor people can rarely afford either, which means wellness is a way of signalling wealth. For the Financial Times, wellness is a smart rebrand of a lot of things rich people do already. A weekend trip to a spa might be seen as self-indulgent, but a weekend trip to a wellness retreat has the whiff of virtue about it 0 something to improve one’s mental health.
Faced with apocalyptic media headlines, consumers increasingly expect sustainability to be deeply embedded within every product or service they consume. For some, it’s a matter of mental wellbeing. Almost half of young people (46%) claim eco-anxiety affects their daily life and functioning.

October 2021

As workplaces started to eye post-pandemic normality, there was an urgent need for organisations to press forward with the progress made in employee wellbeing during the COVID-19 era. That's because after increasing to near 50% during the early months of the pandemic, the percentage of employees who strongly agree that their organisation cares about their wellbeing eroded, losing 13 percentage points in the US since spring 2020.
Despite the fact that most organisations implemented cost-saving measures in response to the pandemic, the same survey revealed that 46% of organizations increased their 2020 well-being budgets relative to 2019, while 64% of organisations introduced a new well-being offering in 2020.
Extreme right-wing views and the wellness community are not necessarily an obvious pairing, but ‘conspirituality’ is increasingly pervasive, warned Curio, exploring the growing group of wellness influencers who abuse their influence to peddle conspiracy theories.

September 2021

The Intergenerational Solidarity Index is a measure of how much different nations provide for the wellbeing of future generations. The index was developed by Jamie McQuilkin and was first published in 2018 in the peer-reviewed journal Intergenerational Justice Review. In 2020, a revised and updated version of the index was published in Roman Krznaric’s book The Good Ancestor along with analysis by McQuilkin and Krznaric.
The Society for Human Resource Management calls it the "turnover tsunami." Texas A&M Professor Anthony Klotz coined it "the great resignation." Whatever term one uses, the recent mass exodus of talent sparked by rebounding economic activity has organisations in a frenzy to keep their best people, claimed Gallup. Now more than ever, people are evaluating their lives and how and where they invest their energy -- and they want an employer that supports the lifestyle they aspire to. Many talented workers are leaving for workplaces that align with their personal belief system and show an authentic concern for individual employee wellbeing.

July 2021

COVID-19 taught governments is that societal well-being makes countries more resilient. Nations that invest across a range of development dimensions- such as education, health, infrastructure, and governance - were better able to cushion the socioeconomic fallout from the pandemic. BCG analysis showed that countries with improved abilities to convert wealth into well-being as well as those with high overall well-being tended to mitigate drops in economic performance and limit the growth of unemployment rates during the first year of the pandemic. In contrast, countries with lower levels have fallen further behind, particularly in GDP growth and employment. This aligns with previous BCG research that showed countries better at converting wealth into well-being were able to recover more quickly from the 2008–2009 financial crisis.
Research suggested that swimming is better for the brain than other forms of exercise. It has a particularly positive impact on memory, cognitive function, and mood, but scientists aren’t quite sure why.

April 2021

Gallup's global research found five elements of wellbeing that it claims add up to a thriving life:
- Career wellbeing: You like what you do every day.
- Social wellbeing: You have meaningful friendships in your life.
- Financial wellbeing: You manage your money well.
- Physical wellbeing: You have energy to get things done.
- Community wellbeing: You like where you live.

February 2021

Research distinguishes between two forms of wellbeing: people’s feelings during the moments of life (experienced well-being) and people’s evaluation of their lives when they pause and reflect (evaluative well-being). Drawing on 1,725,994 experience-sampling reports from 33,391 employed US adults, recent results showed that both experienced and evaluative well-being increased linearly with log(income), with an equally steep slope for higher earners as for lower earners. There was no evidence for an experienced well-being plateau above $75,000/y, contrary to some influential past research.
Workplace wellbeing has become a more significant consideration for employers, research suggested. During the pandemic, several major companies, such as insurer Aviva, offered staff days off for wellbeing. In the UK, research from insurer Westfield Health showed the cost of mental health absenteeism increased in 2020, but also that the majority of employers plan to spend more on employee wellbeing in coming years. Long-term flexibility and mental health programmes at work were both cited as popular options by employees in the study.

December 2020

EY noted that, in 2020, a wave of startups focused on supporting psychological wellbeing emerged, fuelled by investment deals pouring into the space. Dr. David Mohr, principal investigator for IntelliCare, believes that the growth in the sector can be attributed to a societal inflection point accelerated by the global pandemic: a decrease in stigma combined with an increase in the acceptance of technology for mental health issues.
Mindalt is a deodorant featuring blends of 22 essential oils that don't just smell good, but have been proven to impact the brain's nervous system and positively alter people's moods. The brand claim is that they've changed deodorant from a mindless function to a self-care moment. The product comes in four versions: ‘More Mindful’, ‘More Focus’, ‘More Energy’ and ‘Less Anxiety’, allowing users to choose what they're most in need of when they start their day. According to Mindalt, the product works throughout the day, as essential oils slowly break down and continuously release into the bloodstream via the armpits and through inhalation. Mindalt also lists the ingredients, including the source, purpose and EWG Clean Rating for each element.
Along with others supporting social entrepreneurship such as Skoll, India Development Review and Stanford Social innovation Review, the Schwab Foundation is promoting a global movement, through its Wellbeing Series. The idea is to support the human aspects of entrepreneurship to unleash the potential for social change.

August 2020

According to the Financial Times, the highest value for money comes from treating mental illness. There are many reasons for this. Empirically, mental illness accounts for more of the misery in our society than any other factor, including poverty. Under Covid, mental illness, became on average nearly 10 per cent worse for those already mentally ill, especially for women and young people. Excellent psychological treatments exist for most mental illness, and they are not expensive. But they reach fewer than one in five of those who need them. Finally, the economics. Mental illness is the main illness of working age, accounting for half working-age morbidity, and half of all disability and absenteeism. When people recover, they go back to work, come off benefits and pay more taxes.

July 2020

Physical health is not the only component of well-being - mental health is key as well. It was already a pressing workplace issue before COVID-19 struck, with large numbers of workers suffering from anxiety, burn-out, depression and stress. The pandemic further elevated the importance of mental health. During the crisis, people struggled with grief at the loss of a loved one, isolation and loneliness, general anxiety about the future, and overload caused by working long hours or juggling work with other commitments such as childcare. They may also have worried about losing their jobs. A survey by Qualtrics in April 2020 found that 44.4% of newly remote workers said their mental health had declined since the outbreak of the pandemic.

June 2020

Even before the coronavirus crisis, employers were concerned at how hard organisational change was hitting employees’ wellbeing. The Reward & Employee Benefits Association (REBA)/AXA PPP Employee Wellbeing Research 2020 found that the share of employers citing organisational change as a risk to wellbeing increased 235 per cent between 2019 and 2020, with more than half of employers dentifying it as an issue.The coronavirus crisis then concertinaed a decade’s worth of ongoing workplace trends into just a few weeks. Those who run employee wellbeing strategies found their programmes front and centre as they tried to help workers to cope during the most extreme collective change since the two world wars.
"A life well-lived" means something different to every person. By studying 98% of the world's population, Gallup uncovered the common elements of wellbeing - physical, career, social, financial and community - that need to be fulfilled for people to thrive. Gallup believes that COVID-19 called the world to embark on a new journey. A journey focused on wellbeing. If leaders effectively redefine their partnerships with employees, the post-pandemic world could sustain high performance like never before. People will look at their places of work as places of wellbeing like never before.

May 2020

A UK YouGov poll found eight out of 10 people would prefer the government to prioritise health and wellbeing over economic growth during the coronavirus crisis, and six in 10 would still want the government to pursue health and wellbeing ahead of growth after the pandemic has subsided, though nearly a third would prioritise the economy instead at that point.

April 2020

"Wellness" is now an industry that the Global Wellness Institute values at US$3.7 trillion. Of that figure, $999 billion can be attributed to beauty and anti-ageing, $648 billion to healthy eating, nutrition and weight loss, and $542 billion to fitness and mind-body therapies. However, Raconteur warns that until now, the most visible wellness warriors are "white, Fitbit-wearing millennials" who prefer to spend their money on experiences rather than things.
The UK’s National Health Service (NHS) partnered with multiple wellbeing apps to offer free access for all staff. NHS workers could use Headspace, Unmind, Sleepio, and Daylight for free until the end of the year. Through these apps, users could improve their wellbeing through meditation exercises, mindfulness guides, sleep aids, and nutrition programs. The partnership aimed to support the mental wellness of healthcare workers on the frontlines of the COVID-19 pandemic.
However, there may be a widening gulf between health and wellness. Even as the coronavirus pandemic exposed healthcare systems; inadequacies, Instagram’s wellness influencers thrived. “There is something disquieting about the slick translation of the crisis into the logic of branding,” wrote the New York Times, examing the dissonance hiding behind influencers’ glowing skin and plush bathrobes. And yet, the NYT acknowledged, “the promises of strange elixirs and fine powders feel more deranged and seductive than ever.”

March 2020

Employee wellbeing is a vital component of a healthy workplace, improving workforce engagement, productivity and happiness. Yet a misunderstanding of what staff want and need can mean initiatives aimed at wellness often miss the mark and are solely seen as a business expense.

November 2019

The Wellbeing Economy Alliance is a network of countries developing frameworks to measure social, economic and environmental factors in an attempt to move beyond GDP being the sole measurement of economic success. Governments and organisations supporting this approach include New Zealand, Iceland, Scotland and the OECD.
Gallup research revealed five interconnected elements of wellbeing -- career, social, financial, physical and community wellbeing -- that affect everything from our job performance to our health status. But just one out of 14 people is thriving in all five elements.

October 2019

Focusing exclusively on GDP and economic gain to measure development ignores the negative effects of economic growth on society, such as climate change and income inequality. A number of countries are starting to acknowledge the limitations of GDP and expand our measure development so that it takes into account a society’s quality of life. India, for instance, is developing an Ease of Living Index, which measures quality of life, economic ability and sustainability.
Boston Consulting Groups created its Sustainable Economic Development Assessment (SEDA) to track the relative well-being of a country’s citizens and to provide insight into how well a country converts its wealth into well-being. The development of SEDA was a response to the growing consensus that GDP is a limited metric for assessing a country’s performance; the tool built on the work of prominent economists and international organisations to broaden the lens beyond economic indicators. SEDA can be used to identify countries that outperform relative to peers or the rest of the world in certain dimensions, thus revealing best practices and lessons that can guide policies and programs in other countries.

September 2019

As researchers have found, there is more to experiencing a healthy, fulfilling life than just being physically healthy. Gallup's approach to measuring wellbeing includes four other elements in addition to physical health: career, social, financial and community wellbeing.

August 2019

With an increased awareness of how our surroundings can impact health and productivity, and its potential to cut healthcare costs and help businesses flourish, many companies are focusing their attention on how to use architecture for mental health and wellbeing. Buildings designed to make us happier and healthier, however, can be costly and while technology unicorns and high-net-worth individuals have the firepower to spend millions on creating wellbeing-centric havens, it's an open question as to whether creative mental health and design be implemented at scale. Considerations for improving the health of people working inside buildings, include air, water, nourishment, light, movement, comfort, materials and sound.

July 2019

One problem with GDP is that it is an incomplete measure of wellbeing. It does not include the increase in the scope of goods and services delivered at negative incremental cost, nor the non-material side of individual wellbeing or social progress more generally. Looking ahead, most medical professionals will soon have digital assistants to offer diagnoses (particularly for certain cancers and other chronic illnesses), perform non-invasive surgeries, or find pertinent published research. And many of these services will be available remotely to people around the world, including in poor or otherwise vulnerable communities.
The development and adoption of advanced technologies including smart automation and artificial intelligence has the potential not only to raise productivity and GDP growth but also to improve well-being more broadly, including through healthier life and longevity and more leisure. Alongside such benefits, these technologies also have the potential to reduce disruption and the potentially destabilizing effects on society arising from their adoption, argued McKinsey's Tech for Good: Smoothing disruption, improving well-being, which looked at the factors that can help society achieve such benefits and tried to calculate the impact of technology adoption on welfare growth beyond GDP.
Dying for a Paycheck tried to show how two critical contributors to employee engagement - job control and social support - improve employee health, potentially reducing healthcare costs and strengthening the case for them as a top management priority, while describing some examples of organisations that are succeeding at providing the autonomy, control, social connections, and support that foster physical and mental well-being.

June 2019

The Global Wellness Institute estimates the value of the global wellness economy to have hit $4.2 trillion in 2017, growing nearly twice as fast as overall economic growth from 2015 to 2017.
Capita’s Workplace Wellness Report 2019 revealed that 79% say they have felt stressed in the last year, with 47% admitting it is normal to feel stressed and anxious at work - but the transition to wellness being a predominantly mind rather than body-related condition may be worrying for employers, as not only are staff themselves clearly suffering, but the business impact of this is severe.Those with wellness issues linked to stress take an average of 25.8 days’ absence a year compared with 7.1 for those with other ill-health.
Modern-day utilitarians, foremost among them Richard Layard of the London School of Economics, argue that it is both possible to define and measure happiness, and to discover what determines it. Policy can at last do what Jefferson called for. This is the argument of an important book, The Origins of Happiness, co-authored by Prof Layard. Wellbeing can thus be viewed in two different ways. The broader path is to reconsider all government policy against its contribution to social wellbeing, as New Zealand is trying to do. The narrower is to shift resources, at the margin, towards areas of spending most likely to reduce the causes of great harm, such as mental ill health and loneliness, suggests the Financial Times.
An idea from the Centre for Progressive Policy is, for an inclusive growth index that takes the amount of consumption and leisure enjoyed by the citizens of a country and weights them by life expectancy and inequality, thereby trying to create a measure of the actual living standards enjoyed by all citizens.
Another approach is to focus on national wealth, including measures of environmental and social capital to see if a country’s current rate of growth is running down the ingredients of future prosperity.

February 2019

The Financial Times pointed to a growing belief in the value of "clean eating". Having devoured food and drink products promising to provide us with balanced and healthy bodies, we are now thirsty for ones that claim to create balanced and healthy minds. According to a 2018 “Mood to Order” report published by the market researchers Mintel, three quarters of women and 58 per cent of men now agree that what you eat has a direct impact on your emotional wellbeing.
Debilitating mental illness that wrecks lives and careers is increasingly being addressed as a workplace issue. Increasingly, business leaders are speaking out about how workplace mental health issues, such as anxiety, affect their lives, even when they appear to be successful and at the top of their game, responsible for decisions that affect thousands of people.

January 2019

New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern argued for a “wellbeing budget,” which will require government departments to show how they are going to improve living standards in order to spend public money.
Wellness is now a big issue in the business world, claimed Raconteur. Health professionals warn about it, employers talk about it and workers worry about it. The subject’s sudden topicality is not without good cause. The costs to business of ill-health and stress, especially in terms of absenteeism and low productivity, are huge. Recent research in the international retail sector, for example, calculated that one in every 10 hours of working time are lost to unplanned time off.

December 2018

Consumers don’t just want to avoid physical ill health. Many have now consciously embraced an ever-expanding notion of health that promises lasting, holistic physical, mental and social well-being. Which means that businesses can be actively thinking about how to improve the wellness of its customers. For example, Nestlé's "Wellness Ambassador" programme had Japanese consumers submit their DNA and share pictures of their food to receive tailored diet supplements and advice. Countries ate acting too: Chile stepped up as a leader in the battle against sugar, imposing a series of harsh sanctions on junk food producers and advertisers.
A researcher who studies risks to human civilisation embarked in 2018 on an amateur macrohistory project, collecting and graphing data for six different metrics of human well-being, to get a picture of how the world has changed over time. The six metrics were life expectancy; GDP per capita; the percentage of the population living in extreme poverty; “war-making capacity,”“energy capture,” which reflects access to food, livestock, firewood, and, in the modern day, electricity; and the percentage of people living in a democracy.
As consumers become increasingly focused on personal well-being, companies are jumping on the wellness trend, offering everything from on-demand fitness solutions to vitamin-infused foods to non-toxic beauty products. CB Insights explored how wellness is affecting nutrition, apparel, sleep, and more in its wellness report.
World Economic Forum research found that wellness is suddenly everywhere in the business world. Health professionals warn about it, employers talk about it and workers worry about it. The subject’s sudden topicality is not without good cause, as the costs to business of ill-health and stress, especially in terms of absenteeism and low productivity, are huge. Recent research in the international retail sector, for example, calculated that one in every 10 hours of working time are lost to unplanned time off.
The School of Life argued that we know how useful it can be to have a first aid kit to hand. A kit naturally can’t solve everything, but what counts is that it is immediately present and at once highly effective. It contains what’s most urgently needed to contain a situation - until calm returns or more substantial help can be called for. TSOL's Emotional First Aid Kit was designed as a counterpart to that medical first aid kit, an emotional kit that claimed to provided a set of useful salves to some of life’s most challenging psychological situations.
More parents are naming their babies after groceries. The rise of Kale, Sage, and Saffron suggests parents are finding inspiration in the wellness movement, claimed Quartz.

November 2018

The Montreal Museum of Fine Art (MMFA) partnered with the Médecins francophones du Canada doctors’ organisation to let doctors write prescriptions for museum visits. Medical professionals can write a maximum of 50 prescriptions, which will grant each patient an admission-free trip to the museum. The doctors involved in the collaboration cited the ability of art to improve mood, help patients take a respite from serious illnesses, and more - all, of course, with zero side effects.
For TrendWatching, this example shows how the pursuit of health and wellbeing is increasingly breaking free from traditional channels and formats: from cardio-meets-CPR fitness classes in Thailand to STI testing at music festivals in New Zealand to Costa’s low-budget loneliness-fighting coffee tables.
As regards the relationship between wellbeing and work, Raconteur believes that two schools of thought seem to be emerging: one says wellbeing policies should comprise everything and the kitchen sink, while another suggests they should centre on business-led issues with some attempt to measure a return on investment.
Raconteur explained that a host of recent research has shown the impact of financial wellbeing issues in the workplace. For example, a recent report by the Reward and Employee Benefits Association showed that 25 per cent of employees say that financial concerns affect their ability to do their job. The 2017 Willis Towers Watson Global Benefits Attitude Survey also highlights a direct correlation between employees’ financial concerns and performance at work through sick days, productivity or engagement. The survey says employees are looking to their employers for support. Some are responding with programmes that support financial wellbeing, but employees are lukewarm about what they have seen so far and engagement remains low.

October 2018

Giving people more control over their work life and providing them with social support fosters higher levels of physical and mental health, a Stanford professor told McKinsey Quarterly. A culture of social support also reinforces for employees that they are valued, and thus helps in a company’s efforts to attract and retain people. Job control, meanwhile, has a positive impact on individual performance and is one of the most important predictors of job satisfaction and work motivation, frequently ranking as more important even than pay.
A McKinsey article described some examples of organisations that are succeeding at providing the autonomy, control, social connections, and support that foster physical and mental well-being and argued that any company, in any industry, can pull these levers without breaking the bank. Today, though, too few do.
McKinsey further argued that as cities get smarter, they are becoming more liveable and more responsive - and today we are seeing only a preview of what technology could eventually do in the urban environment. The firm believes that talent, technology, climate, and globalisation will be key shapers of the city context and that citizen well-being will be the future metric of success.
Further reading:
- What’s wellbeing like in different jobs? new data, analysis and case study - What Works Centre for Wellbeing

September 2018

Too often we take for granted and neglect our libraries, parks, markets, schools, playgrounds, gardens and communal spaces, warned the RSA, but decades of research now show that these places can have an extraordinary effect on our personal and collective wellbeing. Why? Because wherever people cross paths and linger, wherever we gather informally, strike up a conversation and get to know one another, relationships blossom and communities emerge – and where communities are strong, people are safer and healthier, crime drops and commerce thrives, and peace, tolerance and stability take root.
Europeans are worried, first and foremost, about their own economic wellbeing, reported GZEROMedia. In 14 countries within the EU, respondents listed unemployment or health and social security as the top challenge facing their national governments, according to the latest Eurobarometer survey. But perceptions of economic wellbeing vary widely within the Union.
According to Vanessa King, positive psychology expert at Action for Happiness, learning is actually a “core need for psychological wellbeing.” Speaking to to the website Psychologies, King said: “Learning can help us build confidence and a sense of self-efficacy. It can also be a way of connection with others too. As human beings, we have a natural desire to learn and progress.” By accomplishing this early in the morning, it means the day begins with self-growth - which will also improve your mood, she claimed.
Further reading:
- The architecture of health: how buildings are designed for wellbeing - FT
- The 27-minute morning routine that could change your life, according to science -The Independent

August 2018

Questioning the methodology behind the Economist Intelligence Unit's best cities to live in report, The Guardian asked how lonely are the people who live in the cities ranked highest? How high are the levels of anxiety in these cities? How likely are strangers to come to your aid if you are in distress? It adds, to paraphrase Benjamin Disraeli, there are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and global liveability indexes.
Big Think reported on a new study published in the journal Frontiers in Neuroscience which claimed that just 10 minutes of mindfulness meditation can improve a person’s cognitive abilities, provided they’re not too neurotic to begin with.
Since 2012 The Boston Consulting Group has used its proprietary diagnostic tool, Sustainable Economic Development Assessment, to produce a score that measures the relative well-being of countries and also relative scores for 10 dimensions. The 2018 report, Striking a Balance Between Well-Being and Growth: The 2018 Sustainable Economic Development Assessment, revealed that countries which lead in generating well-being for their citizens tended to post faster economic growth over the past decade.
While African countries on the whole have maintained their overall wellbeing rankings, many have made positive strides towards improvement. Twenty-six out of 40 countries (65%) have enhanced their ability to transform wealth into wellbeing and nearly a quarter (nine of 40) are now above the world average ability to do so.
Noting that modern-day “wellness” refers to holistic healthy living characterized by physical, mental, social, and spiritual well-being, CB Insights analysed 150+ companies that are promoting wellness in nutrition, fitness, business, travel, and more,
Quartz wrote about how wellness became a new religion, arguing that at some point in recent history, we decided to use ‘because it makes me feel good’ as a key metric by which we determine truth. Truth has become, in essence, anything that makes us feel good about ourselves. That shift created the perfect conditions for the wellness industrial complex to flourish.
Air pollution causes a “huge” reduction in intelligence, according to new research, indicating that the damage to society of toxic air is far deeper than the well-known impacts on physical health. The research was conducted in China but is relevant across the world, with 95% of the global population breathing unsafe air. It found that high pollution levels led to significant drops in test scores in language and arithmetic, with the average impact equivalent to having lost a year of the person’s education.

July 2018

Imagine that it were possible to measure well-being...at both the personal and wider societal levels. Apropos, seeThe Well-Being Agenda from The School of Life on Vimeo.
The OECD has its "Your better life index" covering housing, income, employment, relationships, education, environment, institutions, health, general satisfaction, security and work/life balance. Its How's Life survey offers a comprehensive picture of what makes up people’s lives in 40 countries worldwide and assessed 11 specific aspects of life – ranging from income, jobs and housing to health, education and the environment.
Many are now not only imagining but also actively working towards "an economy designed to promote not unchecked growth, but a steady state of wellbeing", characterised by gratitude. They believe that such an economy must come to realisation through the most far-seeing entrepreneurs of our time, from people who dare to think beyond the confines of the old box.

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