World Wellness Weekend 2021 aims to ‘make healthy easy’

Sunrise yoga sessions, outdoor fitness classes and mindfulness workshops are on the menu for this year’s World Wellness Weekend (WWW), which takes place between September 18-19.

This year’s event will be a hybrid celebration, offering both in-person and online events encouraging people to live as well as possible and highlighting the importance of mental and physical wellbeing in the wake of the pandemic.

More than 2,000 beauty, sports, hospitality and wellness venues in 129 countries will offer safe, free and fun wellness activities to their communities.

Activities include aerial yoga, plogging – a combination of jogging and picking up litter, sound healing, swimming, meditation and energy healing.

Now in its fifth year, WWW aims to democratise wellness by promoting healthy lifestyles based on the five pillars of wellness: sleep and creativity, nutrition and immunity, movement and vitality, mindfulness and serenity and purpose and solidarity.

Participating venues include Banyan Tree in Thailand; the Alba Wellness & Fusion resorts in Vietnam; Hoar Cross Hall in the UK; Six Senses locations worldwide; Glen Ivy Hot Springs in the US; CIDESCO in France, Grand Cayman and Belarus; Aqua Sana Center Parcs across the UK and Glagorm in Ireland.

Several beauty schools across France and Canada will also be offering free beauty treatments to doctors and other health care workers as part of the ‘Care for Care Givers’ initiative.

WWW 2021 is supported by many leading politicians, including ministers of tourism, health and sports in France, Canada and Cyprus and several governors across the US and Mexico. Additional support comes from 60 organisations and trade bodies, including ISPA, IHRSA, the UK Spa Association, CIDESCO and the Spa Industry Association.

“Wellness is not just a decision you take to improve your mental and physical health: it is also an act of influence to inspire those around you to become the best version of themselves,” said WWW founder Jean-Guy de Gabriac.

“There is no nobler mission in life than to encourage everyone to become the best version of themselves in alignment with their heart, head and guts.”