Award-Winning Wellness Trends in 2020

(Photo : Award-Winning Wellness Trends in 2020)

Is 2020 the Year of Wellness? Will it spark a decade of more attention to healthy living? Only time will tell, but our trendspotters have already keyed into a list of what looks like major developments in areas of wellness, from plant-based diets to regular mindfulness training. It may be worth mentioning that 2019 showed immense promise. While many in the U.S. still demonstrate poor nutrition and exercise priorities, the number of people who are watching what they eat and hitting the gym - or yoga studio - after work is growing. Here is a short list of award-winning wellness trends for the year. And if no one is ordering custom crystal plaques for these trends, they should be.

Less Meat, Less Dairy, More Plants

Is this going to be the decade that sees a sharp decline in animal agriculture? Some experts hope so. For starters, you may have noticed a rise in the amount of alternative milks at your local coffee shop in recent years, and the trend is not stopping there. From the bankruptcy filing of Borden to the ubiquity of Beyond Meat and Impossible Burgers, it looks like saying yes to plants is here to stay. Also an interesting trend: today's plant-based lifestyle afficianadoes appear to be less militant than the fur-coat-spray painting activists of past decades.

Under Pressure... Cooking, That Is

Somehow we, as a society, collectively went from cowering at the very mention of a pressure cooker to finding them cheerfully stacked in the aisles in our favorite grocery and department stores. Electric programmable pressure cookers are in, and that can only mean one thing: People are cooking more. Do you know what is made easier to prepare by pressure cookers? Plants! You can take the guesswork out of cooking rice, beans, lentils, and all manner of grains and vegetables; they're faster to prepare and more delicious than ever. Additionally, many complete meals can be cooked in the pressure cooker in less than an hour. Given the option between a delicious home-cooked meal that doesn't take much time to prepare and something greasy and fattening from a drive-through, many Americans will opt for the former. Hello, wellness!

A Little Bit of Zen

There was a time when people took a long and expensive journey to the Far East to learn about mindfulness. Now you can download an app, and in minutes you can be meditating. And what are the benefits commonly associated with mindfulness? Many of its practitioners report that they are calmer and less prone to outbursts of emotion. We might not be able to stamp out road rage altogether this year - or even this decade - but it would be nice to see a major decline. In addition, some who meditate report more harmonious interactions and relationships with their coworkers and significant others, and that can't be a bad thing.

Sweating to the... Newbies?

Another thing you don't have to travel thousands of miles to learn anymore is yoga. And yoga is only one out of a huge variety of forms of exercise that are rising in popularity. Say what you will about Crossfit, it appears that the trend is here to stay, and it shows - not only in the proliferation of Crossfit gyms everywhere, but also in the fit practitioners of the craft. Yoga and crossfit may seem like they're on the extreme end of exercise methods, but they're just the tip of the iceberg. If you reach for your phone and search the available apps, you can find any number of "couch to 5K" running apps, designed to help people who aren't used to jogging ease into the practice. Looking for something that feels less like your P.E. workout in high school? How do you like skating? We only mention it because skating rinks never went away; there's a whole subculture of people who love to strap on roller skates and go around and around and around, and that is great exercise.

So far so good, 2020.