In a polarized wellness market, we’ll see both “analog wellness” (a great logging off and seizing of pre-digital experiences) and a futuristic “augmented biology” for superhuman optimization; saunas and supplements will be reimagined; and the wellness world will tackle serious issues like addiction, teen wellness, the global water crisis, and the aging workforce
The Global Wellness Summit (GWS) recently released its annual Future of Wellness report, the longest-running, most detailed (130-page) forecast of what will make waves in health and wellness in the year ahead.
Last year’s report noted that the wellness market was fast becoming a place of contradictory mindsets. A dramatically more high-tech, medical, hyper-optimizing and expensive market was emerging (“hardcare”). At the same time, a sharpening desire for much simpler, low-tech, less relentlessly self-optimizing and affordable wellness was seen, where social and emotional wellbeing matter most (“softcare”). These polarities were expected to only widen, and this can be seen in 2025 report.
The Analog Wellness trend illustrates the demand for slower, low-tech lives. With the online world’s manipulations, disinformation campaigns, and general brain and culture “rotting,” having suddenly gone too far, we predict 2025 is the year more people aggressively both log off and “analog on”: seizing retro, pre-digital–even pre-industrial–tech, hobbies and experiences … as wellness, and in wellness. The digital disconnection and analog living trends will shake up everything from travel to government policy to home design. The Sauna Reimagined trend investigates the boom in, and reinvention of, one of the most lo-fi, ancient and social types of wellness. The Wellness on the Line trend, about the explosion of creative wellness experiences on cruises and rail journeys, is powered by the hunger for slower, more mindful travel.
Nothing captures hyper-optimized wellness like the Augmented Biology trend, detailing how a new fusion of body and machine (once the stuff of science fiction) is pushing the potential of people’s brains and bodies to superhuman levels. The Supplement Paradox explores new science-grounded and high-tech directions in the vast supplement market, which look to help the major trust issues plaguing that industry.
Wellness will tackle big problems. If spas and wellness destinations have always treated teens as a sidenote, or in infantilizing ways, the Teen Wellness trend explores an industry finally getting serious about their wellbeing, given the skyrocketing teen mental health crisis. The Wellness Tackles Addiction trend identifies a new wellness category poised to further topple taboos around addiction, and covers everything from new wellness-focused packaged goods brands targeting harm reduction, to medical treatment centers programming worthy of a five-star wellness resort, to new sober-curious retreats. The spa and wellness industries have been villains in the global water crisis, but the Watershed Wellness trend reveals how more wellness destinations will preserve and renew our water supplies. Longevity Redefines Work explores the radical changes that are coming to work and workplaces as the number of younger workers decreases and the over-65 workforce explodes, and how the wellness industry will be a key player in helping employees work longer and better.
Finally, The Middle East’s Wellness Ambitions explores something most people might have thought impossible: the emergence of the region as a wellness leader, driven by wellness-focused national “vision” plans in GCC nations, and huge investments in cutting-edge preventative healthcare and sustainability, vast wellness tourism destinations, and sports-meet-wellness concepts.
TEN WELLNESS TRENDS FOR 2025
1. Analog Wellness
2025 Will Be the Pivotal Year for a Great Logging Off, and Analog-ing On
The online world’s relentless manipulations, marketing and disinformation campaigns—causing general brain and culture rotting—seem to have really gone too far. People are grasping how tech’s evilly brilliant AI and algorithms push us toward hate, dissolve the line between real and not real, and keep us addicted to increasingly awful content. If “digital detox” is as old as the Internet, 2025 will be THE year that more people get very intentional about logging off from an online world costing us our minds, focus, humanity, social lives, financial wellness, and political stability. More companies, concepts and destinations will help people disconnect. There’s a new era of “calm tech,” including evermore creative apps that discipline your social media time. More governments are taking action, from banning devices in schools to passing “right to disconnect” laws that fine companies for hitting employees with after-work calls and texts. The digital detox trend is even impacting real estate and home design: the hyper-connected smart home is being replaced by the minimally connected, tactile “dumb home,” where privacy and peace are restored.
Wellness resorts are launching sophisticated analog arts programming: painting, ceramics, calligraphy and writing workshops. Travelers are seeking positively pre-industrial experiences: at the new South African 17th-century farm turned wellness resort, Soetmelksvlei, you learn blacksmithing and wheat milling. The digital detox and analog living trends have been percolating for years, but they now feel less like trendy nostalgia and more like social activism fighting to create a sane, human “retro future.” If we had to bet on AI-driven or analog wellness, longevity clinics or logging off, we’d take the latter.
2. Sauna Reimagined
A Global Renaissance of an Ancient Tradition
While saunas have been around for thousands of years, they’re currently enjoying an incredible renaissance. From new urban saunas in New York City and Chicago, to rustic waterfront saunas in Oslo or Brighton, to saunas with immersive art installations in Tokyo, today’s saunas represent a reinvention of an age-old tradition—and an increasingly younger, hipper crowd is taking notice. A key part of this sauna renaissance is driven by a rise in entertainment in saunas. The Aufguss movement, once the domain of European countries, is gaining momentum worldwide, with new countries like Japan and England taking part in recent years.
Sauna design is also getting far more exciting, and stand-alone saunas are accessible, often made for the public, with low entry fees. Even box-style saunas in spas are becoming more experiential, with panoramic glass walls or immersive digital art. Event-sized saunas that fit dozens—or even hundreds—of people are also popping up worldwide. Younger consumers, craving real-life connections beyond bars and clubs, are flocking to these social saunas, which can feature DJs, drag queens, or full-blown concerts. Where saunas were once a sad, dark, lonely box in a basement, today they’re lively, social cultural and entertainment hubs, often with fantastic views and in incredible locations, and people just can’t get enough.
3. The Supplement Paradox
Wellness, Efficacy and the Trust Revolution
Supplements are a gigantic, growing $178 billion market that has moved from humble health aid on pharmacy shelves to cultural phenom. With glossy packaging, celebrity endorsements, and price tags now reaching thousands of dollars, supplements mean status as much as health. The industry has been long plagued by lax regulations and “science washing.” This trend explores new directions that could help create shifts in the perception of supplements’ efficacy and value. Science is meeting premiumization, from hyper-personalized formulations to a focus on cellular longevity, as supplements evolve into more precise tools of lifestyle optimization.
The trend also covers new detoxification methods removing microplastics, heavy metals and pollutants that can hinder nutrient absorption, and how nanotechnology could enhance supplements’ precision by targeting specific tissues or organs, bridging the gap between medical treatment and supplements.
4. Teen Wellness
An Opportunity for Greater Inclusion
Teenagers today face mounting mental health challenges, fueled by societal crises and social media pressure. While historically, spas and wellness destinations have treated teens as a sidenote or in rather silly ways, with the skyrocketing teen mental health crisis, the industry is finally getting serious about teen wellbeing. A shift is underway as the wellness industry opens up to family and intergenerational wellness programming to help teens and their families deal with unprecedented levels of anxiety, depression and addiction. From off-grid sanctuaries in Bali that help teenagers deal with the overstimulation of the digital age, to surf therapy retreats in the UK and Morocco that combine the mindfulness of surfing with trauma therapy, culture and connection, new programming is using powerful wellness tools like sound therapy, meditation and nature immersion to fight the rising teenage “diseases of despair.”
A wide range of urban and suburban wellness programs are meeting teens where they are in their local communities to provide accessible experiences that improve mental health, and free apps like Clear Fear and Sorted Teens have been designed specifically to help teens deal with anxiety or foster resilience. The wellness industry has a vital opportunity and responsibility to support this generation and foster healthier, more balanced young lives, and we expect more serious teen wellness solutions will emerge in the coming years.
5. Watershed Wellness
Industry Takes a Leadership Role in the Water Crisis
As water scarcity becomes a terrible problem worldwide, fueled by climate change, population growth and pollution, the spa and wellness industries must rise up, both collectively and individually, to address the issue. This is the biggest problem that nobody is talking about, affecting millions of people globally. The spa and wellness industries have long been water-hog villains. Consider this: a single drench shower uses up to 40 liters of water per guest, which can add up to 11,000 liters of water daily—or more than four million liters (over ten million gallons) annually. That’s just one spa. As our planet heats, and droughts and water shortages become far more commonplace, it will become imperative for wellness establishments to do more to help preserve, replenish, and renew our water supplies, reinforcing the idea that wellness is not just selfishly about individual health, but also about the health of the planet.
As more destructive droughts loom, and as the public becomes more aware of water shortage issues, it will become imperative for the spa and wellness industries to change their practices—or risk being seen as an outdated, ethically obsolete model of wellbeing that neglects this rising crisis in planetary wellness.
6. Augmented Biology
Unlocking Human Potential Through Advanced Health Optimization
As advancements in health technology and genetic engineering unfold, a new paradigm is taking shape in which health is not merely sustained, but actively optimized and extended, enabling people to unlock their full neural, physiological, and psychological potential. A fundamental redefining of the nature of human capability is underway and a new fusion of body and machine that once seemed like the stuff of science fiction is pushing the potential of people’s brains and bodies to superhuman levels. Breakthroughs include performance-enhancing brain-computer interfaces, neurocell wellness, nth-level extreme performance fitness, and wearable robotics with exoskeletons that help athletes endure intense exertion. Neurable’s smart headphones are integrated with brain-computer interface technology to help people gain deep insight into their cognitive health and manage burnout.
Rising consumer demand for wellness solutions that optimize cognitive, emotional and physical states will see the idea of unlocking untapped human potential become a reality. We’re on the cusp of a new era where we’re beginning to not only understand our biology more deeply, but also take active control in improving it, and we’re pushing the boundaries of what it means to be human—unlocking radically new possibilities for health, brain power, longevity and performance. The future will not be defined by our limitations, but by our endless capacity for growth and improvement.
7. Longevity Redefines Work
Wellness Industry Opportunities Arise to Support the Expanding 65+ Workforce
An age bomb is coming, and it will radically reconfigure the workspace. All over the world, the number of young workers is dramatically decreasing as the over-65 employee demographic explodes in an age of longevity. It’s hard to believe, but the fastest-growing workforce age group globally are now the over-75s. Many forces are driving people to work longer: the vast knowledge resources they hold, their financial needs, the desperate need for labor, and the 4% GDP boost available to countries for every one year of increased work participation. This trend explores the many seismic changes coming to work: what roles we’ll fill, how long we’ll stay, and how we’ll adapt. It will all come down to maintaining the health and wellness of older workers and creating work policies that address how our responsibilities, needs and goals change with age.
If we don’t create solutions that put workers on a path of longevity, our economies will fail. The wellness industry will have a huge role here, and expect new advisors specializing in the wellness of the very valuable corporate older worker.
8. Wellness Tackles Addiction
Wellness Moves into Harm Reduction and Addiction Treatment
This trend identifies a new wellness category, with the wellness space poised to further topple taboos and offer innovative products around addiction, just as it has for sexual wellness and menopause. Wellness practices are increasingly being integrated into all manner of addiction treatment—from alcohol to illicit drugs to technology—and wellness companies are enthusiastically entering the harm-reduction space. As drug use climbs around the world and alcohol is named a Class 1 carcinogen, creative, judgement-free options are needed.
9. Wellness on the Line
Cruise and Rail Journeys Navigate to Wellness Travel
Fueled by a desire for slower, more relaxed travel, both cruises and train travel are surging in popularity. Increasingly, they’re also exploring itineraries with a host of holistic wellness programs, resort-level facilities, on-board health experts, and wellness-focused excursions. From dedicated Dior spa carriages on Belmond’s fleet of luxury trains, to a boom in wellness retreats at sea—sometimes with a celebrity twist—wellness is playing an important role in offering unique programming that helps users differentiate in a crowded marketplace.
Rail journeys are celebrating their natural mindful qualities. Commuter trains are highlighting the opportunity for knitting or meditation during Mental Health Awareness Week. A new generation of train travelers is discovering Europe’s historic thermal towns—all accessible by rail—and visiting the bathhouses, grand hotels and promenades that set the scene for 19th-century wellness journeys. Wellness-focused excursions for both train and cruise travelers increasingly offer guests the opportunity to explore local wellness traditions, from wild swimming in Scandinavia, to gathering medicinal plants with a Mayan shaman in Mexico, to soaking in onsens in Japan. As astrotourism, silent tourism and “calmcations” grow in popularity, rail and ship travel—which can transport guests far away from light and noise pollution—will capitalize on these trends. Cruises are focusing on everything from longevity programming to more “scientific citizen” expeditions. And residential cruise real estate is also emerging. With both cruises and trains offering travel where the journey can be the destination, and with slowing down exactly the kind of wellbeing we most need, expect to see more wellness on cruise lines and rail lines moving forward.
10. The Middle East’s Wellness Ambitions
From Desert Retreats to High-Tech Wellness, the Region Embraces Holistic Wellbeing
The Middle East is emerging as a global wellness leader, blending cultural heritage with cutting-edge innovation and sustainability, fueled by national strategies and vast new developments. Wellness is touching every part of Middle Eastern society, from innovative health solutions to religious gatherings, and as oil-dependent countries seek new revenue streams, wellness is emerging as a prime sector. Several Middle Eastern countries have articulated national visions that emphasize wellness and preventive healthcare as integral components of their development strategies, understanding that wellbeing is vital to economic diversification and population health. The UAE’s Vision 2030 invests in prevention and AI-enhanced clinical care; Oman’s Vision 2040 emphasizes preventive health and the creation of a genomic database targeting genetic diseases; and Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 funds public health campaigns targeting chronic illness and has gone big on wellness tourism.
Arabic wellness traditions and dramatic landscapes are creating authentic experiences that highlight the region’s beauty and heritage. For instance, in Jordan, guests connect with local Bedouin culture while stargazing and hiking. The region is pioneering new intersections between sports and wellness. Extremely ambitious investment in preventative healthcare, sports, and wellness infrastructure and tourism, are creating a new global hub for wellbeing—one that once seemed unlikely. (PRNewswire)
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