In our recent interview with Lucy Eden, Founder of wellness event specialists Be In Your Element, she shared her insights on the importance of incorporating wellness into your events. According to Lucy, it all starts with going back to basics — focusing on comfort and equipping guests with the tools they need to truly unwind and connect. Read on to hear more from Lucy and her insights into comfort and wellness in events.
What do you think of when someone asks you to picture wellness at an event? Chances are you picture activities such as meditation and yoga, or images of people outside going for a walk.
There’s a good reason that these activities have remained the ‘traditional’ idea of wellness and that’s due to their physical and mental benefits, even in short bursts.
Yet despite the known benefits of incorporating wellness into events, organising events often remains a complicated and busy affair, leading to these wellness activities being relegated to a tickbox exercise for organisers. A reshaping of what traditional wellness means to guests and to events as a whole is therefore needed – and it all starts with comfort and bringing it back to basics…
Breaks aren’t breaks anymore
A common thread I see when it comes to organisers trying to incorporate wellness into their events is only using the pre-determined, so-called ‘coffee breaks’ to allow their delegates to recharge. These breaks in our 21st-century busy and increasingly online world rarely involve an actual break from the noise.
Between laptops and smartphones, it’s incredibly difficult to switch off during a break at an event, as a pause in the proceedings is often used to catch up on emails, take a quick call or do some of the day job.
Our busier world and overreliance on technology have made what was once very simple and natural far more difficult. 30-40 years ago, checking emails simply wasn’t an option for guests at an event, when breaks were to step outside or have genuine conversations with someone, both very simple, albeit still very important, examples of incorporating wellness into an event.
I believe it is about putting more focus on these breaks and giving people permission to pause. We can do this by ensuring breaks have a bit more structure and guidance to focus on comfort and ‘switching off.’
From a tick to a tool
By making wellness part of an event’s itinerary, we not only give guests permission to pause – we’re helping change the mindset away from a tickbox exercise to more of a tool to help support them in their day-to-day lives. By carving out this time, events have a unique ability to support their guests’ wellness even long after the event in question is over.
It doesn’t need to be complicated. Wellness activities that focus on comfort such as yoga can be great if the event space can facilitate it, but simpler activities such as breathwork or meditation can be done with no equipment, making them great options to incorporate into an event.
It’s all about empowering guests to understand the benefits of wellness and how these simple pauses can be utilised in their own lives, making it the norm to take time out to practice wellness. The events industry has the ability to plant the seed of wellness in people, which is why the industry as a whole has a huge responsibility in championing wellness and amplifying its messaging.
Changing the language of traditional wellness
The biggest challenge as I see it is still that we have to get people on board and embrace wellness as a concept – even if this is simply to encourage them to try some new activities in their daily life or at events.
A lot of it comes down to the language we use. Someone new to wellness seeing a half hour yoga session on the event schedule may be put off or not confident in their ability to take part, so renaming or tweaking the activity slightly to be more beginner friendly can help ensure more buy-in.
The great thing about wellness activities is that as long as the activity gives you permission to pause and gets your body moving, then it can only be a good thing for your guests. Even with traditional activities, how you position and market them to your guests sometimes requires a more modern and different touch.
Once this baseline of wellness is established in people, the world of wellness truly opens. While encouraging guests to incorporate the practice into daily life is the first important step, the next step is to encourage people to step out of their comfort zone and explore the many ways wellness can be used to challenge people.
For more information on wellness in events, check out our wellness packages, offering a unique wellness daily delegate rate that seamlessly combines our award-winning event offerings alongside specially curated wellness experiences.