Euphiletos Painter Panathenaic prize amphoradepicting a running race,Metropolitan Museum of Art
Wellness and health have become a rising industry, not only in an economic sense, but younger generations have been drinking and partying less, instead going to pilates, drinking matcha and working out.
The rise of a health-focused world is not surprising. Technology, lifestyle shifts, and climate change have all pushed society toward becoming more health and wellness oriented.
The idea of taking care of one's body is also an ancient one. The ancient Greeks believed strongly in exercise and physical discipline, and so did ancient Eastern thinkers. Patanjali, the ancient Indian philosopher whose yoga sutras laid the foundation for yogic practice, understood the body and the self as inseparable, part of a single path toward clarity and balance.
Modern philosophers built on this foundation. Exercise, eating well, going to the doctor, practising rituals, having hobbies, working with our bodies, all of it is just as good for us as a book or a piece of knowledge is to the mind.
With that said, here are some recommendations from the perediza team.
If there's one thing that calms my mental health more than anything else, it's chatting to my mom on a call for 4 hours straight – showing her what I cook, what I'm doing, how my day was, and sharing all the daily gossip with unnecessary amounts of detail. This, of course, comes with getting offended when she ends the call to speak to someone else in the family while paradoxically getting annoyed when she keeps calling me back. Engaging with family, even in adulthood, and making them part of our lives is one of the most undermined and undervalued assets to health. There is something quietly radical about choosing to stay close, keep the door open, and let the people who knew you before you knew yourself remain part of who you are becoming. Of course, this comes with the caveat that they are healthy and good for you, not toxic, not diminishing. But where that safety exists, it is worth protecting. Love is community and community makes us healthy. So get on that call, and make sure you do it often.
The age of supplements and vitamins is a booming industry, with thousands of brands releasing one more thing they say you need for your health and well-being. So when Nuchu sent their colourful package over to us at perediza, we wondered: what makes this stand out? The gummies were super tasty, soft, and the right amount of chewy. What I noticed most was the packaging and titles for each one: Calming, Beauty, and Immunity, with different ingredients for different purposes, which made it such a great way to start my day. It had what I needed: easy packaging, tasty vitamins, and accessibility. The product is straightforward, but does it have science to back it? The thing about Nuchu is that they've stripped away everything unnecessary and only kept the key ingredients. No artificial sweeteners, yet it tastes so good, with incredible ingredients like ashwagandha (an ancient herb supporting calm and stress reduction), biotin to boost keratin production, and elderflower to support the immune system, alongside the core vitamins, of course. The packaging was fun, the product was well-designed, and the ingredients were clean. In a society swarmed with anxiety, Nuchu feels like it was built on something quieter. A great way to stay healthy in an easy, fun, and natural way.
Imagine going to one building and getting physiotherapy, personal training, skin check and a GP consultation in one day. Well, that's UNTIL for you. UNTIL is a health and wellness club with 50+ disciplines under one roof. With four London locations, they give health and wellness practitioners the space to grow their own businesses and control their own assets. Through their health concierge program, UNTIL lets you build your health system and solve your health problems with expert practitioners.
In a world where health and wellness content is everywhere, but experts have been overwhelmingly silenced by misinformation on AI and social channels, UNTIL is bringing humans back into the equation. Human interaction, knowledge and community, exchanging between disciplines and having your doctor, psychologist and physiotherapist discuss your issues together for interdisciplinary solutions, this is the future of health and most people have yet to hear of it.
Honestly, taking time is something that goes against the grain of society nowadays. We constantly think of optimising, performance, speed, and action, yet none of that is really good for our mental well-being at the end of the day. It causes burnout, stress, and anxiety. We always hear that eating slowly is better for digestion, reading slowly helps you understand words better, stretching slowly gives you more control and makes the muscle stronger. If there is something we can learn from this, it is that slowing down is greatly beneficial in many areas of health and well-being.
I like to incorporate this into food rituals, whether that is making a cup of tea, a chai latte, coffee with cinnamon foam, matcha, or a yoghurt bowl with whatever I find in my kitchen. Pistachio, honey, biscoff biscuits broken up, chia seeds, anything that might work together. Let's experiment and take our time.
Practising agricultural gratitude and acknowledging how many people and natural processes are involved in the act of nourishment can enhance the enjoyment and fulfilment of a meal, transforming it from basic sustenance to meditation. Urban Greens, with six locations in London and an additional five on the way, uses fresh, local ingredients delivered daily to ensure that this awareness is not forgotten, and that quality and flavour are evident in the healthy, colourful dishes on the menu. The friendly and talented staff, known as creators, make salad and bowl dressings in-house and seek to cultivate an atmosphere that lets your brain unwind while your belly is replenished. Highlighting the role of creation connects food and nourishment to art, as creating a meal is itself an artistic endeavour. Urban Greens and its philosophy create a physical and mental space in which slowing down gifts us the ability to appreciate not just what is in front of us, but everything that enables it to be as well.
Remember when the pandemic hit and we all went back to our old games (or updated versions on consoles such as Xbox and Nintendo Switch) and hobbies? We started creating art again, whether it was good or not, after all, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Some people turned to making clay sculptures, some dug up their old sketchbooks and returned to their hobby. There were even those of us who started reading again after years of endless fatigue from our daily lives and need to make ends meet that snuffed out the flame in our minds that loved to read.
Well, why did we ever stop? Most obviously, because we had to go back to the routine of eat, work, sleep, repeat. And on top of that, trying to maintain a social life and focus on other healthy routines such as homemade cooking or going to the gym really did not leave time for our inner child, did they? But don’t you remember how invigorating it was to act like a kid again? That is a healthy habit, as everything I’ve mentioned can be, in moderation.
It doesn’t need to be deemed “cool” or look “perfect” for it to be fun, your mind comes first. As long as you enjoy creating, or playing games, or reading a book that could be considered “childish,” then do it! Do it for you, do it for your well-being, and most of all, do it for your inner child who is begging for some fun.
A deep breath filling the lungs and raising the chest. Survival mode off. Mind on. We spend so much of our lives moving by memory. Get up. Get going. There are things to be done. Our minds and bodies become disjointed, ruminating on work while our legs carry us, exerting energy we sometimes have and other times, do not. Yet, they know they have to move. To return to ourselves, beyond a mental assessment, is also to return to our bodies.
Pilates is a discipline which emphasizes the strengthening of both mind and body simultaneously. While it finds itself in the centre of a newfound buzz, this is a practice with over a century of cultivation. Whereas yoga prioritises mental wellness alongside spirituality, and traditional exercise practices overlook it, pilates is a marriage of the two. Find strength and mental alignment in a variety of spaces, whether that's a simple practice on a mat in your living room, in community at a local event at the park, or using varying machines in a boutique studio. Find what makes you feel good and gives you the strength to say: Slow down. Breathe.
