New year, new me, we say. As the season of penning down ambitious aspirations in journals destined to collect dust ushered in this January, I couldn’t help but notice a common thread between all the resolutions proclaimed and echoed on social media and in real life: establish a workout routine, eat healthier, lose weight, gain weight, start meditating, stop overthinking. From the copious pilates studios sprouting across Singapore to the increasing offerings of acai bowls at cafes, it’s perhaps an understatement to say that wellness culture has taken the 2020s by storm.
So what is wellness? First popularised by Dr Halbert L. Dunn in the late 1950s, the term ‘wellness’ is distinct from mere health in that it goes beyond the basic, passive absence of sickness—it is an active, ongoing pursuit that focuses on the wellbeing of an individual as defined by themselves. Indeed, valued at $1.5 trillion and still growing, the wellness industry is everything but passive.
For a more tangible definition of wellness, one needs to look no further than online role models. Whether in the form of “that girl”, a TikTok trend that is both both inspirational and aspirational, depicting a perfect girl who not only scores straight As but also has her 13-step skincare routine down to a T, or a YouTuber extolling the value of gymming and setting intentions at 5AM before heading to his self-founded startup, exemplars of wellness culture abound. Wellness presents itself as the key to unlocking a mental, physical, or even spiritual nirvana where one might find a clearer mind, stronger body, dewier skin, shinier hair, and metaphysical fulfilment. The allure of such a beneficial lifestyle is as clear as day, but in an era where everything humankind has known about health is undergoing a massive upheaval, why the stubborn surge toward a zenith of overall wellbeing?
Wellness—Why now?
I get it: it’s the third yearly installation of a global pandemic that nearly seems like a repetitive simulation that The Truman Show might inflict upon its titular character, a trial that’s never-ending and designed to test our highest limits. Perhaps there’s a sort of desperation to find some semblance of stability and normalcy in a world where viruses discovered one day may take lives the next, like holding still the hand of a faulty clock that just won’t stop ticking.
There exists a term for this quest for concentration in an environment of chaos—flow—an “elusive state of absorption in a meaningful challenge or momentary bond, where your sense of time, place and self melts away”, according to the New York Times. Despite sounding abstract and nearly transcendental, flow may be what drives us to finish that last set of crunches and awards us the satisfaction of having completed it afterwards. Even a Netflix binge one might justify as self-care may actually count as flow, as long as the viewer maintains a state of concentration throughout their viewing. Essentially, the flow we find in our pursuit of wellness awards meaning to monotony, presenting a daily treat of fulfilment and long-term glimmer of hope in a reality otherwise clouded by hopelessness. This is what draws the modern pandemic-plagued population to wellness culture.
When all goes well
What’s most important about flow is its pertinent link to well-being—in the early phases of the pandemic, a University of California (Riverside) study found that the people who had best tolerated quarantine were not the most mindful or optimistic, but those who had achieved flow in their everyday activities. Understandably, many are fatigued from the positivity rhetoric found everywhere from throw pillows to Instagram hashtags, and actually, physically moving and immersing oneself in a self-betterment project leads to a better chance of maintaining pre-pandemic happiness levels. This is also why many of us found ourselves absorbed in activities requiring substantial concentration that we might have scorned before the pandemic, such as baking banana bread or furiously whisking Dalgona coffee.
Moreover, the worldwide scale of wellness culture can multiply the positive effects of wellness. For those aspiring towards the aforementioned “that girl” aesthetic on TikTok, they have an opportunity to partake in a global phenomenon made possible only by modern technology. By sharing beautiful photos with real-life and online friends, documenting golden hours and delicious salads, people invested in this trend romanticise their daily routines such that they’re motivated to keep them up and consequently maintain their well-being. After all, who doesn’t want to prevent the quarantine fifteen?
The dark side of wellness
One question remains unanswered though: what does the finish line look like? When we’ve made a dozen trips to the gym, remembered all ten steps of our skincare routines, and journalled every night, what does this be-all-end-all haven look like? Is it a virtual one with a million likes and thousand heart emoji comments? A stomach as flat as tarmac or a magical jade egg that claims to cure all things hormonal? Maybe we’re hoping that a ten-minute daily workout will negate the existential crisis that comes with navigating one’s 20s in a pandemic, and that the peace from having achieved a dream wellness routine will last forever. More often than not though, it doesn’t.
The pandora’s box of wellness is its aforementioned focus on self. While motivating in implying that one can achieve anything they put their mind to and the sky’s the limit, sometimes there exist obstacles to wellness that we can’t just negate through sheer willpower—say, a global pandemic. When wellness culture imposes pressure on the individual to achieve exacting standards without acknowledging limitations beyond their control, this can naturally lead to self-blame and self-criticism, and spiral into perfectionism. In extreme cases, eating disorders like orthorexia—the obsession with eating healthy—may surface.
This is all compounded by the sheer corporate value of the trillion-dollar wellness industry. Although many aspects of wellness can be pursued individually and without cost, such as YouTube workouts (think 2020’s obsession with Chloe Ting’s ab shred) or nature hikes, there is no denying that a certain level of financial comfort is needed to spare time and energy for the pursuit of wellness in the first place, and the sectors of society who truly need help with their well-being may not be able to buy their way into wellness culture. Ultimately, as with any other industry, the prosperity of wellness culture rides on the magnitude of the very problems it promises to solve. It seems impossible to have our (gluten-free, sugar-free) cake and eat it too.
Finding a balance
In all honesty, there is no definitive solution to the wellness paradox. If there was, it would already be viral on TikTok. What we can do, however, is remember that wellness should simplify, not complicate. It should make our lives more pleasant, not stressful. It can mean saying the occasional yes to $7 acai bowls because they are genuinely a godsend in 33°C weather, but also to free podcasts and sharing laughs with your closest friends. It’s hard to drown out noise surrounding wellness culture because sometimes the distraction is exactly what we desire in the midst of chaos, but perhaps remembering that the line between well-being and perfectionism is a delicate and completely individual one, and drawing it such that it’s liberating, not confining, will truly make us well.