What is the wellness industry, really, but a material way to measure the never-ending quest for a balanced life? When your go-to tarot card shaman shows you an image of the queen of coins, she divines that you’re in financial distress. To cross check her work, you supplement her prognostication with the magic of science and technology, like, say, infrared heat for tension relief or the latest neuroacoustic software that treats anxiety in your brain like vicious computer-network malware. Today’s wellspring of wellness trends means that the entangled promises of psychotropic medicine, spirituality and word-of-mouth TikTok quick-fixes are constantly competeting in our minds. A wellness spectrum that once seemed like exotic woo-woo just a few years ago, everything from the revitalizing power of urban hiking (otherwise known as simply taking a walk around the block) to the transformative effects of once-club-kid-only ketamine, now makes you pause and think, “Wow, that just might work!”
This collective shift in wellness thinking means spa seekers are now looking to go far, far beyond a deep-tissue massage or a sound bath. “Overall there is a pull to go deeper, to re-evaluate, to update belief systems and in some cases completely overturn the old operating system and start anew,” says Isabella Channing, who runs The Shack Yoga and Wellness at Bahia Vik José Ignacio in Uruguay. “People are reconsidering what it means to heal and become a better version of themselves.”
Relaxation, it seems, it getting a reboot. Below, we round up the world’s leading wellness centers that are paving the way for Mindfulness 3.0.
UXUA Casa Hotel & Spa in Trancoso, Brazil
Farm-to-massage-table.
“We have five different biomes near us with very rich edible plants, some very exotic and unusual for foreign people – and even for Brazilians,” says Bob Shevlin, cofounder of Uxua, a colorful tree-house resort in Trancoso, a former fishing village in Bahia that, with its pricey accommodations and uncrowded beaches, has long been considered the Brazilian version of the the Hamptons. Here, tropicalismo is not just an art form, but a science. One of the property’s bungalows has been converted to a wellness laboratory equipped with scientific equipment, custom medical kitchen and a rooftop housing an ingredient garden. Dr. Jullian Hamamoto, the lab’s on-staff nutrology director, works with Pataxó Indians healers and local farmers to create lymphatic ginger cure-alls, Peruvian maca-root smoothies for sexual energy and almescar oil, a resin elixir extracted from the almescars trees in the hotel’s own nature reserve that is used for massages.
Six Senses, Ibiza
Spa by day, Ted Talk by night.
The Six Senses craft therapeutic programs that have a sense of place, whether its “forest bathes” in Douro Valley, Portugal or an elaborately-executed hammam in Kaplankaya, Turkey. Their latest offering, Six Senses Ibiza, combines multi-day, anti-aging immersive retreats, “longevity lounges” and massage catacombs with thought-leader pop psychology. In November, the property hosts the Alma Festival, which features talks from the likes of Dave Asprey, the biohacking pioneer, and workshops to nourish the alma led by the New York pilates-innovator Taryn Toomey.
Bahia Vik José Ignacio, Uruguay
Sob sessions.
