Re-defining detox – it’s about sustainability and enjoying your wellbeing

Tradition has it that January is the month of detox.  The green juices, the new gym memberships, the resolutions, the dry evenings. All swiftly followed by the guilt when one or all of those good intentions remains difficult to keep up.  In the words of Miley Cyrus however, it’s the climb. This year we accept that wellness is both an ongoing journey and a combination of mind, body and soul. It’s about making wellbeing sustainable. Here’s some of the ways we’re re-defining detox in 2019…

Digital rules

Digital detox is not a new thing.  Whether you choose to spend some time at a spa with your phone off or are disciplined about ignoring all things social media and email related after 8pm, time away from any kind of screen and digital communication is an important part of looking after your mental health.  It’s all about the consistency though. Reducing digital usage by a little and often. So culturally it seems we’re increasingly turning to usage monitoring technology provided by Apple, Facebook and Twitter. Counting how many hours you AREN’T on social media is now more on trend than monitoring those likes.

Corporate wellness

Wellness at work is now being taken more seriously than ever.  Where once your wellbeing was a personal matter and offices seemed to be proactively uninterested in how you felt, today we acknowledge that everyone benefits from good health, including that bottom line.  So more corporate wellness schemes, more classes, more benefits and even more spa breaks. It’s a sign of a forward thinking business with future-proofing at its core that helps us to look after our wellbeing consistently rather than on the odd holiday once we are well and truly exhausted.

“Wellbeing is something that needs to be incorporated into everything we do - a little and often rather than tacked on at the end of the working week.  For this reason, my team and I at Spabreaks.com are now working with companies to offer bespoke options for wellbeing at work, with the goal of leading to a happier, healthier workforce, who will hopefully stay with you and your company for a long and productive career.”

Abi Wright, Managing Director, Spabreaks.com

Breathing

It seems like one of the most absurd things that we would need to learn how to breathe, but it’s amazing how clever the body can be when we let it do its thing.  Whether it’s soothing the nerves or simply maintaining good health, breathing properly and effectively is something that most of us forget to do as we race around like headless chickens all the time.  

The likes of Grayshott Spa have introduced classes to help with that.  Practices such as the Emotional Freedom Technique are, also known as tapping, are superbly helpful in managing anxiety and stress and helping to maintain positive wellbeing while letting go of negative feelings.  

The real benefit of both of these practices, in line with the 2019 approach to detox, is that it’s something you can learn with a specialist, and then continue into the everyday.  So you can apply it in stressful situations and reduce anxiety in the moment. It’s about sustainability and management rather than one huge cleanse only to follow it up by building all that stress up again.

Personal wellness

One of the central focuses for us when it comes to redefining wellbeing, as well as redefining detox, is to stop thinking about wellness as a destination and start treating it as wherever we are at that particular moment in time.  

If you’re in perfect health, that’s wonderful.  Although the chances are there are still things you want to achieve.  If you feel you would like to lose some weight - also wonderful - your stage of wellness should not be a place of self flagellation or judgement.  It simply is, it’s a journey, and that’s ok.

At the opposite end of the spectrum you might have cancer or another serious health condition.  Certainly when it comes to spa treatments we have been working with spa destinations to treat guests with cancer as simply being at a particular stage of wellness rather than in any way ‘other’.

We all have ‘health’, whatever stage it’s at, and it’s personal.  So the big thing for us this year, is to help continue spreading that message.  We don’t treat detox of any kind as a quick fix, but with lifestyle approaches that simply help us to feel the best we can.  To enjoy our health, wellbeing and life at whatever stage we’re at. That’s personalised wellness.