We’ve reviewed the Global Wellness Summit’s list of the Top 10 Future of Wellness Trends of 2020 and pulled out key insights along side findings from our 2020 Health & Wellness in Canada study. This is part 1 of our 3 part blog series exploring these trends.
- Focused Shift From Sleep To True Circadian Health
We know sleep is important to Canadians as 84% said “Improve Sleep” is an important health & wellness goal/priority to them in our 2020 Health & Wellness in Canada Study. In addition, tiredness/lack of energy was the #1 H&W concern for Canadians in our study at 80% and lack of sleep was ranked 2nd at 77%. Tiredness/lack of energy and lack of sleep were found to be especially strong among females and millennials. The Global Wellness Summit predicts a major shift in the way consumers view and shop for sleep products for their health and wellness – moving from a focus on sleep solutions, to a focus on circadian health optimization. The shift will be from just trying to get more sleep, to trying to get high quality restorative sleep – and this can be achieved through understanding the type and timing of light. They note that timing of biology will become something that we need to measure and manage, and light will be the central part of any circadian based solution. Dr. Steven Lockley, an associate professor of Medicine at Harvard predicts: “Circadian health optimization—incorporating the type and timing of light—will become more important than ‘sleep’ in health and wellness within the next few years. Medical and technological solutions that will help us realign our internal circadian clocks with each other, and our internal clocks with the outside world, will surge.”
Examples of circadian health solutions that are currently available include: Circadian rhythm-supporting home lighting such as Dyson’s Lightcycle lights which adapt brightness and colour based on time of day.
Apps to help you schedule your light exposure such as Timeshifter, which provides personalized advice on light exposure prior to a trip to eliminate jetlag.
An interesting trend the Global Wellness Summit suggests might surface out of this shift to circadian health is the circadian diet. Similar to intermittent fasting, which encourages eating windows, the circadian diet encourages the dieter to eat during light periods of the day, and fast during the dark periods. One of the suggested reasons is that calories are better metabolized in the morning than in the evening. In addition, scientists are also discovering relationships between the circadian clock and our micro-biome.
Our 2020 H&W in Canada study showed intermittent fasting is the most popular diet among Canadians with 11% saying they used it in the past 12 months – this was a 2-percentage point increase from 2019. Knowing this, we expect Canadian dieters to be open to exploring the idea of a circadian diet in 2020 and beyond
- Aging Rebranded: Positively Cool
Baby Boomers are aging much differently than previous generations with their increased longevity and substantial wealth. With this, we are seeing a big gap for health, wellness, and nutrition brands to give the same attention to the Boomers as they do to younger consumers.
Our 2020 Health & Wellness in Canada study showed 92% of Boomers said they were personally interested in Health & Wellness (vs. 83% of Millennials). In addition, Boomers are more likely to read nutrition labels when shopping for food (75% vs. Millennials at 63%), and also are right on par with the younger generations when it comes to keeping up with health & wellness trends at (31% vs. Millennials at 32%). These findings support the notion that Boomers have high interest and are a prime target for health & wellness products.
The Global Wellness Summit notes that Boomers expect a stronger focus on personalization in the wellness space with more prevention and management solutions for chronic illnesses such as diabetes and heart disease. Similarly, in our 2020 Health & Wellness in Canada Study Boomers were very concerned with eye health (76%), high blood pressure/hypertension (76%), overweight (75%), high cholesterol 74%, cardiovascular/heart disease (73%) which were ranked among their top 5 concerns. This is a significantly different top 5 set of concerns compared to Millennials who didn’t have any of these fall into their top 5 – their main concerns were: stress (87%), tiredness/lack of energy (86%), lack of sleep (80%), mental health (78%), and physical inactivity (77%).
An important point made by The Global Wellness Summit is that “people don’t age equally – the more people age, the greater the divergence”. Boomers are a large health & wellness market and brands need to determine who their target is within the Boomer segment, rather than targeting this generation as a whole.
Brands who have done a great job in this space include:
Perennial is an adult nutrition beverage whose positioning centers around longevity and redefining life after 50+. Their beverage is plant-based and designed to help your bones, brain, heart, gut, immune system, and muscles all in one.
ElliQ is a digital companion created to help older individuals live independently longer. It helps keep them connected and engaged with the world around them, along with daily reminders, cognitive stimulation, and more.
Do you want to WIN in Health & Wellness? Connect with us at susanweaver@pearl-strategy.ca
Sources:
2020 Wellness Trends, from Global Wellness Summit.
2020 Health & Wellness in Canada Study, from Pearl Strategy and Innovation Design Inc.
