Nestled on the Sunset Strip, a block from the famous Chateau Marmont, Remedy Place is no mere gym. It is a members-only wellness social club—a place where booze is banned and health is served through IV drips.
Here, L.A.’s richest and presumably healthiest get first dibs on the hottest new workout trends. They treat themselves to “detoxifying” infrared saunas. They submerge their bodies in subzero cryotherapy chambers. They engage in power networking over yoga mats. It is, as the founder and wellness adviser to the stars Jonathan Leary told me, a space for people of a certain status to hang out and be active, not unlike a twenty-first-century country club. It is what he calls “social self-care.”
But the kombucha-flowing happy hours don’t come cheap. Monthly memberships start at $495, capped at two hundred members. Remedy Place doesn’t have to worry about selling spots; before it even opened, celebrities, entertainment industry elites, and pro athletes came calling. Nike sent its executive team to check it out, followed by Goop. As Leary told me when I visited during the week of the club’s opening, “in a place like L.A., people do love some type of exclusivity.”
I reported on Remedy Place in the context of other new spaces marrying high-end fitness with elite hobnobbing. There is also L.A.’s Monarch Athletic Club, which charges $1,000 to $2,000 per month for access to unlimited private training along with a recovery suite, IV therapy, and a nutrition bar.
In New York, an exclusive fitness lounge called GHOST bills itself as an “architectural playground” full of art, boutique classes, live DJ sets, a marble boxing ring, and luxury amenities like Himalayan salt infrared saunas. At $3,000 a year (on top of a $400 registration fee), Ghost is, as the founder describes it, “the Soho House of fitness.” It’s primarily invite-only but you can try to get in: access entails a thorough application process digging into a prospect’s job and lifestyle interests. An in-person interview is required. Imagine the college application process—but with your Instagram account in place of a personal essay. And just like getting into Harvard, membership connotes status, affirmation that you are good enough.
The Manhattan boutique workout studio The Ness permits a small percentage of new clients by way of a member referral system, which means newcomers are vetted and vouched for by those already accepted. “If you’re hosting a dinner party at your house, would you just post flyers of the invite and say everyone come over for dinner? No, you invite your friends,” co-founder Colette Dong told me of her mostly female clientele. “We feel the same way about fitness in terms of garnering a community … [Our clients] feel really comfortable and let loose.”1
If wellness is already the new luxury signifier, these places have escalated it to a new echelon. It’s no longer enough where you work out, but with whom you work out. You need to know the right people, be in the right shape, and offer something in return—social cachet—for application approval. It’s the next step for those who see fitness intertwined with their personal brand. Wellness, it could be said, is now a doorway to exclusivity.
Makes sense, if only because the wellness economy now mirrors American income inequality, where the middle class gets smaller and smaller, to the point where only a disfigured hourglass remains: democratic models like the YMCA on one end and affluent boutique gyms on the other. You’re either going budget or you’re going luxe. But the luxe seems to be winning, the hourglass squeezed ever tighter, more lopsided. “It’s much easier to target the one percent than it is to really come up with a model for the ninety-five percent,” says Beth McGroarty, director of research at the Global Wellness Institute. “Community is now the entrance and aspiration.”2
While the upper class perfects their downward dog, the communities most in need of physical exercise profoundly lack it. Apart from the limited number of gyms or recreational centers in rural areas, many can’t access parks or safe outdoor spaces. A 2018 study found that three-quarters of wealthy individuals exercise on most days, compared to a quarter of lower-income populations.3 That gap, researchers suggest, will only widen further.*
Wealth and wellness are near synonymous terms these days, morphing the idea of health as a necessity into one of indulgence. Premier health clubs are but a chia seed in the granola bowl of upscale wellness. Fitbit released fitness tracking jewelry. Beboe THC vape pens are referred to as the “Hermès of marijuana.” When I did a story on Goop selling $90 vitamin packs, Clare Varga, head of beauty at trend forecasting firm WGSN, summed up the “wellthness” trend: “It’s become aspirational,” she said. “It’s an investment and demonstration of self-value with a healthy body becoming the ultimate must-have fashion accessory.” You’ll see this reflected in pop culture. If a film wants to connote an affluent Type A woman, she’ll, sure enough, be shown furiously pedaling in a cycling class or dressed in head-to-toe athleisurewear.
It’s not just what we buy or do, but where we live. Gated health-focused communities and condo buildings compose what will soon be a $180 billion wellness real estate market.4 The upper crust is scooping up homes equipped with posture-supportive heat reflexology floors, mood-enhancing aromatherapy, and vitamin C–infused showers. Rounding out their in-house staff, they employ a 24/7 “personal wellness assistant” to remind them to exercise, meditate, or to tend to any “emergency” wellness needs, like, I assume, replacing an empty oat milk carton.
Take Troon Pacific, a development company selling sleep-enhanced homes with over-the-top health amenities such as built-in bedroom speakers programmed with guided meditation. It made headlines when it listed a “wellness-focused” mansion in the Bay Area. The 8,350-square-foot estate incorporated “biophilic design” (nature-inspired architecture) and an entire floor dedicated to health and fitness—a gym, yoga deck, massage room, sauna, and steam shower. (The home, of course, also came equipped with a Tesla car charger.) “The greatest luxury in life is your health,” Troon Pacific CEO and co-founder Gregory Malin told me, “and so wellness became our focus.”5 The house sold for nearly $20 million.
The wealthy always take trends to the extreme. Once a specific product or idea becomes popular, then people want the fancy version. When everyone has a TV, then comes the demand for sophisticated, voice-activated home entertainment systems. So too with wellness. As the sector grows and technology advances, it ratchets up more and more.6 That’s why you start seeing ads for ethically mined 24-karat gold dildos.
Wellness is more susceptible to scrutiny because of what it stands for, which consumers presume should be afforded to all. But it does make you think: How did wellness, the pursuit of health, become associated with luxury? And though these high-end efforts generally get the most attention, they certainly are not the majority. So who are the new players expanding the reach to more communities?
In one Instagram post, the curvy, striped beverage bottle sits on a vanity shelf alongside luxe brands: La Mer, Chanel, and the prestige skin care line Sunday Riley. In another, a manicured and jeweled hand grasps the bottle against a designer floral dress, like the last accessory of a perfect ensemble. There it is again as a model runs with the bottle down a hotel hallway. Sometimes it’s the star attraction of an afternoon spent relaxing at a luxury pool. The brightly colored bottles are constantly spotted in posts of good-looking people engaged in fun, chic activities.
Why is Dirty Lemon—a health drink—acting like a vodka brand?
It is, at the end of the day, just water, lemon juice, and a teensy bit of activated charcoal. Yet the beverage brand promises you, quite literally, the world: globe-trotting adventure, allure, mystery, beauty, and sexiness. You could say Dirty Lemon is a line of functional elixirs with big ambitions. Beyond its social media fantasy, the collection of $6.99 drinks promises to transform one’s body—it claims to improve digestion, stimulate liver function, and “gently cleanse your system of impurities.” Consumers vaguely know the nutritional benefits of this expensive lemon water, but that’s not what matters. What matters is that it’s cool. And cool is the currency.
Dirty Lemon founder Zak Normandin told me he was inspired by skyrocketing start-ups such as the millennial beauty brand Glossier. He wondered: Why can’t we do the same for health tonics? So Dirty Lemon incorporated lifestyle photography that spoke “around” the juices. The company also purposely designed the product to stand out on a 2x3-inch screen—bright colors, minimal wording—so it could be the star of an Instagram post. Unlike other product categories—such as a vacuum cleaner—wellness beverages lend themselves to be photographed everywhere. You can shoot them in a convertible, at the beach, in the bath. A mattress, no matter how trendy, can’t pull that off.7
Almost every wellness brand sells some sort of mythical state of bliss on Instagram, their preferred playground. Their sales pitch is less about health benefits and more about something stronger: a feeling. It’s about feeling good, feeling in control, feeling attractive. Brands are counting on you buying a fantasy, not unlike the fashion industry’s tactics. Kombucha, supplement brands, and collagen proteins use the same playbook, populating Instagram with imagery of smiling models seemingly enjoying a life of sugarless beverages on an empty stomach. For detox tea, it’s flat tummies and opulent white marble kitchens, while collagen powder brands prefer athletic types posing in the lush outdoors.
This is partially because luxury marketers, publicists, and branding consultants now work for the wellness economy. All the PR firms that once pitched me as a journalist on fashion labels and high-end restaurants a decade ago currently represent supplement brands and “natural” food or beverage companies. But that’s to be expected when the wellness industry doesn’t always lead with science, but coalesces around emotion and consumerism.
Once celebrities entered the wellness fray, the aspiration factor skyrocketed. Halle Berry has a wellness site. Kristen Bell launched a premium CBD skin care brand. Miranda Kerr became an organic beauty mogul. Not to mention the slew of stars either fronting or investing in snack brands or fitness tech. They work in an ecosystem where they send their goods to their other celebrity pals, who then further promote the brand in their glossy kitchens. When you see Oprah hawking Clevr Blends, a $28 powdered instant latte brand advertised as “made with brain-boosting, mind-clearing, mood-lifting ingredients,” it might be because she believes in all those claims. But it’s also likely because her pal Meghan Markle is an investor. Celebs know an opportunity when they see one. They’re businesspeople as much as they are entertainers.
The same goes for Goop. While Paltrow and her company do not offer one single answer to being well, a seductive philosophy runs through Goop’s veins: trendy experimentation leads to control, and with control comes enlightenment. But enlightenment certainly won’t come fast, and it won’t come cheap. A dizzying stream of pills, clothing, and accessories is crucial for this mission—conduits for an ailment-free paradise, just within your credit card’s reach. These are hopes repackaged in millennial-pink canisters. This arsenal of luxury products, presumably, could help one look and feel just like Gwynnie herself. Or, as Paltrow once explained to Harvard Business School students, “it’s crucial to me that we remain aspirational.”
This is the magic of Goop’s allure—Paltrow looks good on the outside, a mirage presumed to be the consequence of what she consumes on the inside. Goop’s leader isn’t just selling the pretty millennial-pink canister; she is the millennial-pink canister. And she’s able to sell it by creating a “culture of lack,” wherein you’re always on the cusp of missing something to achieve the desired state. By peppering in a few relatable anecdotes, she convinces you there’s no distinction between her—a Hollywood megastar—and you, the consumer.
“I do think in my case, eventually always the pros of [celebrity] outweigh the cons because I can go into any market and talk about what I’m doing, and that’s a powerful lever to be able to pull,” Paltrow told me during an interview on her supplement line.8
“We tend to trust the names we recognize,” explains Sheril Kirshenbaum, the co-author of Unscientific America: How Scientific Illiteracy Threatens Our Future, because we’re hardwired to gravitate toward that which we know and aspire to. We’re living in an Instagram culture that draws us in, wherein we want to enter the orbit of the beautiful, rich, and put-together. Paltrow presumably lives a lifestyle we want. In contrast, we don’t know many scientists or academics personally. So it makes sense we’d honor a connection to someone we, at the very least, recognize from award shows.
“Following these personalities gives us a false sense of connection, but a sense of belonging that many people are probably really yearning for,” Kirshenbaum points out. “They want to be part of a community. They want to be accepted. They want to feel smart. They want to feel like they’re part of something bigger and maybe that they’re making these healthy, socially conscious decisions for their own households, families, and children. By following these influencers, they can be part of that.”
Molding one’s appearance is one of the easiest ways to gain access to this culture, to signify we are “pursuing health.” You just need to accessorize with the “right” clothing and accessories. Your attire signifies you have the time—if not the resources—to work out. To be well. It’s how we made sleek $50 S’well reusable water bottles—for God’s sake, water bottles—a status symbol. Women’s magazines, meanwhile, do their part when they position an arsenal of CBD tinctures as a gateway to the cool kids’ table. In a culture obsessed with ambition and physical attractiveness, wellness props are the ultimate signal: I’m driven. I work hard. This is who I am.
Groups of women in workout leggings flanked by juice bottles are no different from Harley-Davidson biker gangs. They have a distinctly different appearance (Barbarella with a yoga mat), lingo (“Let me meditate on that”), and rituals (sage-clearing a new home). These cultural markers serve as deliberate borders to distinguish them from the masses.9 To join them, you need to swear allegiance: buy the swag, perform the lunges. Those who do are greatly rewarded—they get to belong. And like anything in life, the more you give of yourself to something, the more “it” defines you. In time, the truth of what we need to live healthily no longer matters because one’s whole self-image is wrapped up in these beliefs.
There’s a big motivation to join wellness culture because it’s fashionable. A woman might feel a surge of self-esteem for participating in the crowned culture. She can feel empowered for prioritizing her body, and by extension, herself. She flaunts her participation on her social media channels, letting friends know that wellness is a core pillar of her lifestyle. These postings affect those in her circle: One study found that exercise habits are susceptible to social influence and peer pressure, which means you take up running to get fit, but maybe also to keep up with your health-centric friends.10
If dental care became the next symbol of self-care, I assure you there would suddenly be a flush of women posting pictures of themselves flossing.
Since our culture is based in part on capitalism, the wellness industry has become, in part, reflective of our individualist and consumerist culture. (You’re not going to stop Americans from buying stuff—that’s how we express ourselves.) The movement may have sprung from revolutionary roots, but it has since divorced itself from an anti-establishment ethos to grow as bloated as the establishments it once rallied against.
Now, I am not one who cannot enjoy a bit of fantasy and luxury. I’ve subscribed to W and Vogue since I was thirteen. But what separates wellness (or what claims to be wellness) from other sectors is that health should not be associated with class, image, or five-star hotel pools. Inevitably, the messaging becomes intertwined. We start to conflate health with specific kinds of people or products because that’s all we’re accustomed to seeing—a very narrow appearance of health. If thin, wealthy, and attractive are all we’re trained to see, that becomes our automatic factory setting.
Not everyone appreciates this new culture. I spoke with an executive of a popular at-home fitness equipment company that was making inroads with older consumers frustrated by millennial gym rats who made them feel insecure with their flagrant displays of body perfection and Lululemon fashion shows. At home, no one could judge their average arms, let alone a ratty college T-shirt. They said they missed the nineties, when “people weren’t afraid to look like crap at the gym.”
Luxury wellness marketing is most puzzling when it comes to self-care, which was stripped down to sparkly stuff to lure affluent women. Companies will make you believe that their product is crucial to achieving relaxation and therefore take advantage of your (sleep-deprived) vulnerabilities. But there is no uniformity to stress relief, as everyone has their own particular burden and their own preferred mode of relief.
Barbara Riegel, a professor of biobehavioral health sciences at the University of Pennsylvania and a leading researcher on self-care, considers most marketed solutions merely fleeting self-soothing techniques. Real self-care, by her professional definition, is more aligned with both physiological and psychological health maintenance, including nutrition, sleep hygiene, exercise, and illness symptom management. These are not things that need the snazziest device or hippest boutique class. “Self-care has been taken over by marketing,” says Riegel, who adds that her fellow international researchers are confused by all this talk of facials and tech. “This is a U.S. phenomenon.”
Other industry experts agree that wellness is indeed a global trend, but what’s going on with American women is something else. It is a mania not replicated in certain European countries where they have better work-life balance, more communal societies, and a more attentive (or socialized) medical healthcare system. Some have policies in place that support self-care. Sweden, for example, set up a 24/7 open hotline for registered nurses to respond to citizens’ non-urgent health issues. One Italian academic told me, “We take two-hour lunches with friends or coworkers to eat fresh food and we receive four weeks mandated vacation. I’m not sure my country needs all this wellness.”
Self-care does not require a SoulCycle class, Sephora shopping spree, or Bali spa retreat. Oddly, a large percentage of these pricey solutions were thrown out the window during the COVID-19 pandemic. Women quickly learned they could sometimes get the same results with smaller, more affordable activities, like going for a hike.
On one hand, commodification skews health initiatives and intimidates those who cannot buy fancy products. But on the other hand, the aspirational aspect has inspired more people to participate. I used to go with friends to boozy brunches on weekends—now we go to yoga. It’s not a zero-sum game. Whether for the right reasons or not, more women are focused on their health these days. It’s fun. It’s cool. It’s joyful. It’s no longer the drudgery we once thought it was. Women might buy a meditation app membership instead of a purse, or spend a Sunday at the gym instead of the mall. Maybe because of the market, they become aware of solutions that really can help them. Mental health is probably the best example of this. In the span of just a few years, mental wellness went from taboo to widespread discussion. Then, as technological advancement pushed therapy and support groups to the forefront of convenience, the category expanded well beyond the usual stakeholders.
As wellness gains more traction, more and more people demand access. They, in time, innovate solutions that fit their specific requirements. I’ve profiled a BIPOC-worker-owned yoga cooperative in South Central L.A. and mental health apps catering to underserved communities with diverse therapists. You can no longer say wellness is strictly for a certain person: more groups have joined the fray. Even that which starts off with upscale circles can be adapted to suit others in need. It is, as one wellness researcher described to me, “trickle-down wellness.”
Take Timeshifter, a personalized jet lag app first popular with business travelers, pro athletes, and anyone keen to optimize every hour while traveling. Now Timeshifter is working to bring its wellness app to shift workers who possess unique health risks, including an increased risk of diabetes, heart disease, and even certain cancers due to circadian rhythm disruption and lack of sleep. These are people in manufacturing, construction, mining, delivery, the military, and medical care; nurses, soldiers, and truckers who are more at risk of drowsy driving, which increases the risk of fatal car crashes on the commute home. Many of these professions have a high proportion of women, such as nursing, where the night shift is par for the course.
Luxury is to some degree where we’re at. In most media outlets, wellness is generally presented through the prism of a very specific lifestyle, potentially spurring ageism, ableism, and elitism. But the average gym-goer does not come from a “sleep-enhanced house,” nor do they frequent a fitness studio to flex their superiority muscles. Gyms (and streets) are filled with people of all colors, backgrounds, and professions. Most are just looking to get in some exercise or release some tension from having been glued to an office chair all week.
Flashback: When Female Complaints Made Way for Female Pressures
What would a combination of Oprah, Gywneth, and Estée Lauder look like? Lydia Pinkham, the inventor of the most popular health tonic in nineteenth-century America. Pinkham’s face graced newspapers. Her herbal concoctions sat atop every pharmacy counter. She even inspired folk songs.
In 1875, the Massachusetts native created Pinkham’s Vegetable Compound. It was advertised as made with “natural” ingredients, and Pinkham claimed it was superior to whatever the medical industry was hawking. Her advice? “Let doctors alone.” Each bottle contained life root, unicorn root, black cohosh, and fenugreek seed suspended in 19 percent alcohol. Pinkham was a strict temperance advocate, but the family business had no qualms about selling forty-proof bottles of booze.
Pinkham’s concoction promised to cure all female “weaknesses,” of which there were many: menstrual pains, headaches, kidney issues, uterine prolapse, labor pains, indigestion, faintness, addictions, “floodings,” “irregularities,” and flatulence. It was a broad cure-all, but some of these terms had hidden meanings. As Sarah Stage writes in Female Complaints, “floodings” and “irregularities” were a wink and a nod to those seeking an abortion.11
What separated this tonic from the competition? Each bottle featured a sophisticated profile illustration of the dignified, middle-aged Pinkham. Seemingly wise, compassionate, and sturdy, people compared her to the Mona Lisa or Lady Liberty. Pinkham came across as someone you knew, someone you could trust. Pinkham used this to her advantage when she encouraged women to write to her with their problems, which she would answer and often publish as testimonials. It was a novel concept back then: building a personal connection with a brand. Hundreds of women per month wrote in complaining of issues that Pinkham shrewdly blamed on an era ill-suited for women. Pinkham’s ads described how the American woman was “expected to play a complex role of many duties, some of which are entirely incompatible with each other.” A woman was made to keep order in the house, bear and raise the children, cook fine meals, do all the shopping, and potentially work outside the house … all while looking and acting presentable. “Sometimes a servant and always a lady,” is how she put the burden foisted on women. The same copy could run today.12
Following Lydia’s death in 1883, Pinkham’s Vegetable Compound shifted its focus from health to that of appearance. Beautiful women invested in their health, read the new copy. The compound would “cleanse” and beautify the body, thereby restoring women’s chief power: their looks. “There is no secret about a woman’s beauty; it all lies in the care she devotes to herself, to removing from her system all poisonous impurities, and keeping at bay those fearful female diseases,” read one ad.
Shortly thereafter, the marketing shifted again to exemplify upper-middle-class women of leisure. But the marketing illustrations didn’t line up with the clientele: wealthy people could afford physicians. It was the working class who resorted to over-the-counter tonics. The new company owners understood that status is aspirational, and that customers would want to believe that they—alongside the gloved and stylish—were peers relying on the very same product. They too wanted in on what the respectable and rich possessed, “if not real, then vicarious.”13
Each morning at six o’clock, Maggie Holub begins her work tending to corn and soybean crops on her five-hundred-acre farm in Scribner, Nebraska. Born and raised here, farming is in her blood. She was raised with hogs and chickens. Tinkering with irrigation systems and fertilizing crops are second nature to her. Although, Holub didn’t expect to run a farm in her twenties; her original plan was to join the family-owned farm once her father retired. Unfortunately, in 2014, he passed away from terminal brain cancer at just fifty-one, thereby accelerating the succession plan. Holub went from sometime helper to full-time third-generation farmer. Today, the friendly and approachable Holub operates and fixes all the farming equipment and hauls all of the grain with two semitrucks and trailers.
But Holub has another passion—one that she’s increasingly sharing with others: fitness.
Three evenings a week, Holub packs a trailer filled with dumbbells, yoga mats, and other exercise equipment. Her destination? Anywhere that lacks organized fitness in her rural vicinity. As a trained exercise instructor, Holub runs a mobile gym that sets up shop in neighboring small towns that lack not only exercise facilities but also adequate broadband Internet service. These are people who cannot just watch a streaming fitness class or buy a Peloton. “In any large metro area, there’s a gym on every corner and you can go there twenty-four hours a day,” says Holub. “We don’t have that.” In the summer months, she leads cardio strength routines outdoors. In the winter, she scouts for indoor spaces like high school gyms or community centers.
Outsiders assume that rural populations don’t need group fitness classes or gyms because they have access to the outdoors. But residents in isolated communities are often at risk for health conditions. For one thing, there are no sidewalks, bike paths, or street lamps in some areas, making safety a legitimate concern. Or it’s freezing cold half the year and they cannot comfortably run or walk outside. Not to mention that many people simply don’t enjoy walking or running. Some need a communal outfit to hold them accountable.
In farming communities, there can be a stigma against fitness culture. Farmers might presume exercise is unnecessary since they already move their bodies all day on the land. But there’s a real need for everyone else around them, such as their partners or kids who lack adequate movement. That Holub shows up in their neighborhood and charges only $2 a class leaves few excuses for them not to participate. Lots of people, many of them women, flock to Holub’s classes. They come to exercise and to socialize—interactions they crave when they’re often quite isolated. “You have to go out of your way in rural Nebraska to go be with or meet somebody else,” says Holub.
Farmers are one group among many trying to better represent their needs. They even have their own influencers who speak to their specific agriculture community. They might not, for example, take an interest in veganism or plant-based diets if they raise cattle and their family loves meat. Social media posts show more barbecues and beer than avocado toast and almond milk. As one dairy farmer fitfluencer put it, “I wanted to show people that you can still consume dairy, achieve the results you want, and thrive while doing so.”14
Women on farms have concerns that differ from those of corporate career women in metropolitan areas. In place of bad bosses and meeting fatigue, they battle environmental stressors and machinery breakdowns. They juggle a hectic schedule of feeding farm animals and caring for their families. In one post detailing the importance of self-care, one woman wrote, “We pour our hearts into animal welfare, church potlucks, and [the] county fair. Our anxiety is guided by the weather, the markets and consumer demands. Most of the time we leave it in God’s hands and pour another cup of coffee. But friends, no matter how many times you reheat it in the microwave … you cannot continue to pour from an empty cup.”
Plenty of independent trailblazers are charting a new course in health initiatives. Despite a large Hispanic population, hardly any Spanish-led yoga classes were available in Miami. The bilingual yoga teacher Rina Jakubowicz recalled Hispanic women telling her, “It’s for white people, it’s not for us.” Others expressed concern that it was a religious practice at odds with their faith. But Jakubowicz sensed interest. So she established a bilingual yoga teacher training course, which was then accredited by Yoga Alliance. Her first students included a cleaning and cooking crew who worked for her yoga studio employer. “They didn’t think they could do anything else in the U.S. besides cleaning houses. It was really empowering,” says Jakubowicz, who has since run several training courses. “They were really grateful to have somebody willing to spend time to teach and connect with them instead of just looking at them as labor. Now they can go out and teach.”15
The landscape is shifting. I hear from Black women who say they’re teaching yoga to rap music and not what they deem “dying whale music.” They wear baggy T-shirts emblazoned with the names of hip-hop groups instead of Lululemon gear. The Black Yoga Teachers Alliance, a nonprofit and professional membership organization, counts hundreds of teachers, and its Facebook group has swelled to six thousand. Leaders believe there is still a way to go in terms of representation and access, but they sound optimistic.
These are just several of countless innovative contributions in fitness, though maybe you haven’t heard of them. One reason you might associate wellness with overpriced juice bottles is because that’s what clogs Instagram and mass media. Look at your local news or even hop on neighborhood Facebook groups and you’ll notice a plethora of independently led initiatives working to close the health gap. I think that’s important to remember before bashing the entire industry. It’s nuanced: there’s some good, there’s some bad. A few steps forward, then one or two back.
Wellness—real wellness—doesn’t require all the fancy fixings touted by glamorous stars or pricey social clubs. People are starting to recognize that.
What I am most excited about in wellness are the communities being brought together. I feel strongly that connection is one of the most important pieces of the wellness puzzle and not emphasized nearly enough. I think about Ganja Goddess Getaway (now called Glowing Goddess Getaway), the women’s cannabis retreat I described in the introduction. At first glance, it might seem just like an outdoor house party. But that retreat has a higher aim: deep connections.
Ganja Goddess Getaway co-founder and CEO Deidra Bagdasarian began hosting the retreats following the birth of her second child. “I was kind of isolated after having a baby,” she told me. “I needed a women’s event.” Bagdasarian wanted to recharge and connect, but not in a superficial way.
Bagdasarian believes cannabis can be used “as a creative and spiritual tool” to help women get in touch with themselves and bond more easily with others. With a joint, new friends can cut down on the small talk and get to the real talk. “Cannabis helps take down our walls and be our authentic selves right from the beginning,” she explains. I saw it firsthand as the Getaway participants divulged family secrets, embraced strangers, and swapped phone numbers. As soon as I would introduce myself and extend my arm for a handshake, women would laugh and bear-hug me instead. The slightest I overheard of bad blood was someone saying in a soft, compassionate voice that another member “needed to soak in some positivity.” Later I spotted them laughing together by the pool.
What started as a modest retreat series with roughly fifty participants ballooned into one averaging two hundred. Then came smaller regional gatherings—free of charge—held every Sunday at, naturally, 4:20 p.m. (consumables are brought potluck-style). Bagdasarian wants to expand the retreat once more U.S. states legalize marijuana use, with a plan to go nationwide. “We just got so much feedback about how this was something that [these women] were missing in their life,” says Bagdasarian. “All women are in need of sisterhood and a safe space—and cannabis, it turns out, works for everyone.”
Getting people outdoors in a low-cost, communal manner is a trend gaining traction. Many Americans have limited budgets, barring them from club memberships or expensive at-home exercise equipment. At the same time, they increasingly value experiences, particularly those that put them face-to-face with others. Many organizations engage specific communities by organizing local hikes and nature outings, including Outdoor Asian, Fat Girls Hiking, Latino Outdoors, and others.
Even wellness real estate got a more accessible makeover (or at least more accessible than a $20 million wellness mansion). Haven is a co-living compound in Venice, California, that houses ninety-six strangers brought together by their commitment to wellness. Roommates get to live in a fully furnished adult dorm with a fitness studio, healthy cooking classes, a co-working space, meditation areas, and events ranging from star energy healing (“bring your crystals and water”) to sound baths.
Compared to skyrocketing apartment rental prices in L.A., Haven is a far more affordable option (by more than half the cost for a one-bedroom), especially considering the add-on amenities. But residents aren’t just here for the slashed rent or a full moon circle ceremony. They want, in their words, to “find their tribe.” And many do among this diverse group of yoga mat–toting millennials, most of whom are independent contractors and entrepreneurs. These are yoga instructors, meditation teachers, and cannabis founders.
Residents are equal parts health enthusiasts and spiritually enlightened. They overuse words like “experiences,” “energy,” and “gratitude” to describe the frustration of sharing a bathroom with a dozen other housemates. “Everything is a journey” is how they described chore duty. When I visited, an upstairs bathroom was plastered in a dozen Post-it notes with scribbled affirmations such as “I trust my intuition fully” and “My life is unfolding exactly as it is meant to be.” (This is where I felt a bit concerned for them: Let them poop in peace.)
But overall, life at Haven seems idyllic. Residents meditate or quietly journal on a living room couch while aromatherapy vapors roam the halls like calming spirits. They flip through tarot cards or work on their Burning Man project. Small groups grab surfboards and head to the beach, just a few blocks away. Or they bike ride to a nearby health market to buy ingredients for a communal vegan dinner. Residents explained that they were “a hundred times” happier sharing a 350-square-foot pod-style room with six other strangers than when they’d lived alone in luxury condo apartments.
An unorthodox living arrangement raises eyebrows. Haven residents are subjected to inquisitive questioning by friends and family, many of whom scoff at their cramped shared living quarters. Why, they wonder, would any mature adult decide to bunk with strangers? “Most of [the time] it’s like, how’s the cult?” said one resident. “People don’t get it.”16
Is it a cult? Or more like modern social survival? I asked a twenty-five-year-old yoga teacher named Katie why she decided to live at Haven. Katie said she had hustled her way through school and work, but there was no one to share her success with. “We live in this world where society celebrates getting to the top as fast as you can and doing it all on your own and getting your ginormous apartment and living by yourself,” said Katie, “and then sometimes you question, Why? Why am I here by myself?”
Katie’s new living arrangement changed all that. “The best thing [about Haven] is coming home and there’s always somebody here,” she said. There was one particular element that sealed the deal for Katie, and when she mentioned it, I realized how crucial something seemingly so small could be. It’s likely something many of us who live with others—be it parents, spouses, or friends—take for granted: “You come home and they say ‘Hey, how was your day?’” That, to her, was real wellness.