Wellness ? None of it works except it does.

but then again it doesn't.

MacKinsey & company estimate the global wellness market at more than $1.5 trillion, with annual growth of 5 to 10 percent. People are spending a lot of money on a wide range of gadgets, fads, foods, supplements and who knows what else? Jade eggs? The marketing of these products is massive and over the last few years more and more ‘influencers’ are paid to promote mainly untested, unverified products and treatments. In fact a lot of these products come with a warning “These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.” Which doesn’t make them any cheaper. The whole idea being that these things will make you fitter, healthier, more beautiful and you’ll have a better life, a better job and all will be just wonderful for you. Which is nice. Of course you will probably need help from a fitness guru to achieve the most perfect wellness. Or you can opt for the doctor-designed vitamin and supplement regimens. Best off doing it all in a wellness spa somewhere.

Most of the products and fitness regimes do no more, and often far less than, just eating well and avoiding toxic ultra-transformed foods, walking regularly, developing a good social network and not worrying so much.

The strange thing with many of the products and services sold under the wellness banner is that they don’t work, except they do. A seeming contradiction and one that takes us to the well known but often misunderstood placebo (and nocebo) effect. A glance in the mirror shows us that there is a connection between the head and the body, commonly known as the neck. If, and don’t try this at home, we open the neck up it reveals superhighways along which flow food, usually in only one direction, the breath and a massive flow of information going in both directions. For example we now know that the essential bacteria in our guts send signals to the brain via the vagus nerve and with bacterial metabolites released into the blood. We know now that ‘I’ don’t exist because ‘I’ am an ecosystem. Anyway, back to the placebo/nocebo effects which can be seen as being neural top-down control, because I believe somthing will be good for me, well it will be, placebo; because I believe something is bad for me, it will be, nocebo. A lot of people have the impression that this effect is negligable or they simply don’t think about it yet numerous studies have shown that the 2 effects are very powerful.

A study led by Kaptchuk tested how people reacted to migraine pain medication. One group took a migraine drug labeled with the drug's name, another took a placebo labeled "placebo," and a third group took nothing. The researchers discovered that the placebo was 50% as effective as the real drug to reduce pain after a migraine attack.

The above study was looking at physical effects caused by medication V placebo. The same placebo effects have been seen in psycological studies to such an extent that many are now being re-evaluated. Researchers were wondering if the people in the various psychological study groups tended to understand what the researchers were seeking and biased their replies to support it. In fact this isn’t the case at all, the study participants arrive with a lot of convictions, the replies they make correspond to these previously held ideas. If they believe something will work, or help, or make things better, it will. The placebo effect again. This time however it is even more powerful than the medicine placebo effect, in fact Coles claims that it can even account for, on average, 100% of the result. Which is astonishing, it’s the equivalent of a placebo pill having as much impact as an asprin.

When we re-examine all the stuff being promoted for ‘wellness’ in light of this new research we return to the idea that a lot of it doesn’t have any real effect, yet it does. In the end we are paying a fortune, plus the environmental costs, for a vast range of products and services which only work because we believe they will. Which is interesting as the etymology of ‘well’ is Old English willan "to wish;".

The wellness industry exists and thrives within sytems which are profoundly unhealthy. We breathe, drink, eat stuff which is not good for us, we live in unhealthy houses and appartments and we are, most of us, continually stressed.

We are looking at an animal that has created environments to which it is in no way adapted, and so the animal is never in optimum health and often ill. Any truly viable approach to health has to deal with the ‘whole’ and not just the ‘well’. Instead of consuming wellness products to try and adapt to our toxic environments we must decontaminate our world and our lives, we must restructure our systems in such a way that they improve our health and that of the biosphere in general. We need to live with a bit of stress and excitement, it’s good for us. We cannot continue to live with chronic stress and pollution thinking that creams, ointments, pills, supplements, meditation, perfumed candles and all the rest will sort things out. In the long run they won’t, no matter how much we believe they will.

The wellness industry is profoundly unjust, only those people with enough diposable income can afford the products. This cleaves the world once again into those with and those without. A lot of the health problems suffered by those ‘without’ are exacerbated by them having to share the world alonside the ‘withs’. They are continually confronted by this injustice and this is very bad for their health. Being the pool cleaner in a health spa isn’t the same as being a customer, n’est-ce pas?

Wouldn’t it be great though if the placebo effect worked in politics? Because we believe a government will do some good it does, unfortunately this doesn’t seem to be the case.