Wellness

Wellness is an ambiguous term: Almost everyone has an apparently clear picture in mind when he (or she) speaks of "wellness", but in fact there is no precisely defined meaning. Wellness has a wide range of content. The blurring has a couple of disadvantages: it is too quick and far too easy to sail in the slipstream of the “life-style” word - without saying anything about the quality of the individual aspects. Wellness means a lot - or nothing.

This is particularly evident in the travel sector and in health tourism. To put it bluntly: every guesthouse that comes up with an 8 square meter sauna now boasts of its “wellness area”; every hotel that hides a rowing bench and a treadmill in the basement raves about the “fitness studio for a balanced stay”. The irritating thing: the hotel and guesthouse are not even that wrong. So the question arises, what exactly is "wellness"? What's behind it?

What is wellness?

"Wellness" is defined by the World Health Organization, WHO, as "physical, psychological and social well-being". In everyday parlance, this word is always used when talking about methods and applications that increase physical well-being.

Function, effect & goals

Wellness has changed from a generic term for a physical and mental state to a synonym for content. The big thing in common is the intention: Wellness means well-being as well as the way in which it is achieved. The way and destination are, so to speak, identical. And what is the content of wellness? The approaches used to advertise wellness are always the same: Wellness is intended to counterbalance modern life and its potentially damaging excesses.

It should provide compensation. The arguments are quickly put together: We do not move enough, we stress ourselves at work and in private, we feed on unhealthy food and in unhealthy ways - our bodies, our souls, our minds, in short, find no recovery. Wellness provides a remedy here. The concept of body, soul and spirit is nothing new.

In the harmonious interplay of the three components, mankind has recognized the basis of all well-being for thousands of years - even if this was not always referred to as "wellness". And there have always been efforts to either operate the three components individually or to find helpful applications for all three at the same time - then one speaks of “holistic methods”.

Among the holistic methods, the teachings from the Asian area should be mentioned in particular. Yoga, Tai-Chi, Qigong and other applications combine meditation techniques and martial arts. Body and mind should find a balance and calm down through mastery. This calm in turn radiates back to the whole person and ensures - "wellness", well-being. The diversity of the eastern “techniques” is overwhelming.

Some devote themselves exclusively to the art of healing (such as Ayurveda or TCM, traditional Chinese medicine), others put the sporting aspects in the foreground and therefore mostly run under the flag of "martial arts". However, Taekwondo, Karate, Judo and Jiujitsu are always accompanied by strong spiritual aspects that are supposed to provide purification and thus for - wellness, well-being.

In the West, on the other hand, we are increasingly orienting ourselves towards the cosmetic, medical and entertainment facets of wellness. (Which is not to say that Yoga & Co are not also fun!) A look at the programs of fitness studios, hotels or even the adult education centers makes this clear.

It is about skin treatments (e.g. soap massages, hot chocolate) or make-up tips, there are special massages for applications (Lomi-Lomi, for example, or lymphatic drainage, Shiatsu, foot reflexology), or there are just feel-good offers that are new and for the body Relaxing impressions convey such as the soft pack, the completely pressure-free floating on a pillow of water.

With a few exceptions, all "wellness" treatments are particularly gentle techniques. About gifts that do not stress the body (and thus soul and spirit), because the effects of stress should be alleviated by the wellness treatments.

That is the actual goal, the intention associated with wellness: to create balance and a counterbalance to the stresses that arise from everyday life and from a possibly unhealthy lifestyle. In order to intensify the effect, the wellness treatments usually take place in an emphatically calm atmosphere. The rooms have a calming effect (Feng Shui sometimes comes into play here), and special music or nature noises seal off the outside world. Here the thoughts find rest.

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Risks, side effects & dangers

From this point of view, everything related to wellness can only be rated positively. The only danger may be exaggeration or the unfortunate choice of wellness service provider. Wellness is always an economic factor, a lot of money is spent in this area, a lot is earned, the competition is fierce.

And sometimes the charlatans cavort here, as everywhere else. If you want to do something good for yourself, if you want to do something for your health and well-being, you should inform yourself thoroughly and keep the following in mind. Wellness has two goals: it should secure or restore the current well-being, and it serves, in general, the prevention, the health prophylaxis. It would be a shame if this was done at the expense of a shrunk wallet.