5 Wellness Trends that are Worth the Hype
Trends can be fun to play around with, but without a solid foundational wellness routine, it can get overwhelming. You don’t need to try every wellness trend you scroll past to be living well—you’re a magical unicorn and what works for an insta influencer may not be the best thing for your unique body. True lasting wellness doesn’t come from isolated acts; it’s in the small self care rituals every day that create a consistent routine and make your body feel good.
So, how do you know if a trend is worth the hype?
First look at the source recommending the trend. Are they reliable? Where are they getting their information? You also must tune in to how your own body is reacting. Take the celery juice trend, for example: if you have IBS, celery juice is high FODMAP and can lead to digestive distress. If it does make you feel good, are you actually getting a magical benefit or is your diet nutrient-lacking and the flash of diverse nutrients available in celery juice is giving your body an incredible boost first thing in the morning? In that case, any juice (and an emphasis on some more fruits and vegetables in your diet) would be a welcome addition.
Here are some approachable trends we’re excited about right now that are great lasting additions to any routine:
Support Your Natural Detox Pathways
Drinking celery juice alone is not going to cancel out poor diet, or binge drinking. On that same note, isolated juice/smoothie cleanses and yo-yo dieting aren’t helpful either if you’re just going to keep re-toxing on your off days. That’s not to say you have to be perfect all the time; but you can find a happy consistency where you can have a solid baseline of health. When you set your body up with a solid healthy foundation, it will bounce back and recover faster when you do have an unhealthy day (or weekend).
Supporting your body’s natural detox pathways consistently rather than a once in a while “cleanse” is more powerful and beneficial and can create a solid foundation of health. Our body’s detox systems are constantly bombarded by toxins—in or food, the air we breathe, the food we eat, the products we put on our skin. Decreasing that toxic load and supporting natural detox pathways, like the liver and lymphatic system, lets your body take care of the toxins out of our control. Some of our favorite ways to do this are:
Sweat often (through working out or infrared saunas)
Dry brush
Buy organic food whenever possible (or follow the Dirty Dozen and Clean Fifteen lists)
Meditation
Seems like everyone these days is meditating, and for good reason! Meditation can help counteract the toll stress takes on our bodies. Unmanaged stress can lead to fatigue, anxiety, digestive distress, and more. If you feel like the stress and anxiety are becoming too much to handle on your own, a licensed professional at https://www.betterhelp.com/start/ can help support you. If you want to get in on the medi action start small—meditation doesn’t have to be perfect. Try a meditation app to track your progress and for guided meditations. Start with 3 minutes every morning, then build on that every week. Throughout the day, when things seem stressful at the office bring yourself back to the stillness of your morning meditation: take a minute to close your eyes and breathe deeply into your belly.
Conscious Workouts
Grab a friend and get moving, but make sure it feels good! If you’re leaving every workout completely exhausted/fatigued or unable to recover, you’re doing too much. Over-training can lead to heightened cortisol (the stress hormone) and do more harm than good. Workouts should feel good, and that means different things for everyone. Pay attention to how your body feels after a workout, you should have that “runner’s high.” If you’re not feeling it, take it down a notch and try something new.
Bio-individuality
Just like with workouts, finding the nutrition plan that works for you is also important. Nutrition advice is always changing and there are constantly new fad diet trends, so you have to find what works for your body.
Finding the diet that works for you takes some time and trial and error. Elimination diets like Whole 30 can be great templates to test out how your body reacts to different foods like gluten, dairy, legumes and sugar. When you eliminate potential sensitivities, your gut starts to heal. The elimination process can take anywhere from 30-90 days depending on how quickly your gut heals. Once you feel good enough, you can slowly test the foods you’ve eliminated to see how they make your body feel. Then you have your own personal ideal diet! Again, the key is to just listen to your body and find what works for you.
Using Apps to Track Bodily Functions
Poop, periods, food, activity, nutrition…. there’s an app for that! We’ve talked a lot about tuning in to your own body’s needs in this article. Using apps to track symptoms and bodily functions are a great tool to really start to tune in to what’s going on in your body. You can start to correlate trends (like what foods are leading to digestive distress), and the data can be helpful when talking to your doctor about any concerning symptoms. We love apps like Ovia and MyFLO.
How’s your wellness routine? What trends have you tried lately that work for you?
Alicia Green is a content contributor for JUGs. She’s also the owner of Simply Well where she’s a wellness coach and essential oils advocate. You can follow her on instagram at @SimplyWellByAlicia.
This post contains sponsored links - but note that JUGS only accepts sponsorships from mission-aligned brands that meet our core values of compassion + fulfillment.