Global Wellness Summit predicts wellness trends for 2026

The Global Wellness Summit (GWS) has released its annual Future of Wellness report, predicting the trends that will lead the way in 2026.

The detailed forecast presents the shifts that the  GWS anticipates will transform the health, wellbeing and spa sectors in the coming year.

Predictions for 2026 include a backlash against over-optimisation, longevity expanding into homes, and women’s wellness taking centre stage.

The Future of Wellness report states: “2026 will be another year of shake-ups. A year of corrections and backlashes, a crucial year for women and one where longevity moves in new directions.

“There have been more shake-ups in the wellness market in the last couple of years than in the last 20. The market has been rewritten by high-tech, medical approaches but, at the same time, powerful new desires for a no-tech, deeply human, social wellness are raging.”

European Spa brings you a summary of the GWS’s ten biggest wellness trends for 2026.

1. Women get their own lane in longevity

The booming longevity market has, until now, been largely male dominated but, according to the Future of Wellness report, the future is female.

The report predicts that slowing or even stopping ovarian decline will be the next big biotech breakthrough. Scientists are already working on ovarian stem cell therapies.

Women age fundamentally differently to men, with the ovary functioning as ‘command central’ for health, and its decline. This leads to a cascade of conditions that women suffer far more than men, from immune disorders to dementia and osteoporosis.

With ‘ovary-span’ now understood to be the lynchpin to women’s healthspan, the report predicts wellness providers will move beyond managing menopause symptoms to tackling ovarian ageing and its specific health fallouts.

2. The backlash against over-optimisation

Never before has health been so measurable, and yet never before has it felt so psychologically demanding.

Sleep can be scored, glucose graphed and ageing tracked – wellbeing has shifted from something we feel to something we strive to ‘perform’ correctly.

In response, the fastest-growing spaces in wellness are those prioritising nervous-system safety and emotional repair over metrics. New technologies are quietly regulating the body in the background, without dashboards or demands.

Wellness in 2026, states the report, will no longer be about optimising harder but instead about feeling safer, more connected and more joyous.

Wellness experiences will embrace what humans actually are: imperfect, emotional, relational, sensory and hardwired to seek pleasure.

3. The Festivalisation of Wellness

This trend explores a rising wave of healthy, cathartic wellness gatherings offering music, dance and creative expression for collective emotional release.

These gatherings respond to widespread economic stress, social fragmentation and digital overload, instead prioritising human connection and collective energy.

Events include wellness raves, sober morning dance events, headphone-led somatic experiences and multi-day immersions. They span movement, sound and sauna culture, emphasising participation over performance.

Luxury resorts from Six Senses to SHA Wellness are now hosting immersive, multi-day wellness festivals.

The report predicts a global shift towards a place where wellness is social and expressive, built on joy, belonging and shared experience.

4. The rise of neuro-wellness

The Future of Wellness predicts that regulating the nervous system will be the next frontier of human health.

As people struggle with nervous system overload, neuro-wellness will move from niche to mainstream.

We’ll see a wave of interventions that go beyond supplements and mindset, with consumer-friendly neurotech such as vagus nerve stimulation devices booming.

Long-standing wellness anchors like breathwork, touch therapy and yoga will increasingly be reframed as nervous-system medicine.

The report predicts that brain-body research and a focus on whole-system connections will push neurowellness into everyday spaces, including hospitality and next-gen destination spas.

5. Skin longevity redefines beauty

The traditional focus on anti-ageing is predicted to shift to a new era of beauty, merging biotech, AI, skin diagnostics and active ingredients. Anti-ageing is set to be replaced by the concept of skin longevity.

The report states: “This emerging vertical reframes the conversation from reversing the unwanted effects of time to optimising the skin’s health and function long term.”

It predicts advances in sophisticated skin diagnostics and the development of new active ingredients and regenerative treatments, as well as a focus on scalp health and therapies for hair.

6. A female sporting revolution

Women’s athletics will move from the margins to mainstream, reshaping fitness, media, fashion and business along the way.

New women’s sports leagues are emerging and female-focused sporting events, like the 2025 Women’s Rugby World Cup, are attracting record-breaking attendance and viewership.

This momentum is changing bodies and behaviours. Women are focusing on strength over skinny and filling women-only gyms worldwide.

7. Fragrance Layering

The fragrance-layering trend predicts that the ancient art of combining scents will get a modern reimagining, changing the way people express themselves, shape their moods and interact with others.

Fragrance is set to become a creative, cultural and emotional language, with layering extending beyond personal fragrance into spaces and experiences.

8. Longevity residences

Longevity is predicted to move in new directions, out of clinics and resorts and into the home.

The new ‘wellness real estate’ category, which supports longer, healthier lives through preventive medicine and diagnostics, biohacking and AI-enabled health tracking, will continue to grow.

9. Ready is the new well

The report predicts that preparing for climate disaster will become the new preventative wellness.

It says: “Disaster readiness is becoming the next evolution of everyday resilience, where having a disaster plan is as essential as having a fitness plan.”

10. Tackling microplastics as a human health issue

Lastly, the report predicts this year is the year of actions against the microplastics crisis.

Once associated mainly with oceans and wildlife, microscopic particles are now being detected in human blood, lungs, placentas and even the brain.

Early research links this exposure to inflammation, hormonal disruption, cardiovascular disease and potential cognitive effects.

The report predicts that microplastics may become a routinely measured health marker, tracked alongside cholesterol, and suggests that in 2026 we’ll see the sector beginning to act, to reduce exposure at the source, before the smallest pollutants create the largest health legacy.

The full Future of Wellness report is now available to purchase HERE.

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