The Top Health Trends to Follow in 2019

Top Health Trends This Year

Developing healthy habits helps us to put our best foot forward into the new year. Whether we’re starting new projects or keeping our heads level as we work through more established goals, researching health trends helps us to find the recipes and practices that keep our minds and bodies functioning at their peak. These are the top health trends to keep in mind this year.

Your top health trends

1. Make Self-Care About You

Many of the health trends that we’ll see in 2019 invite us to embrace simplicity, minimalism, while we make our self-care routines less performative.

The rise of Pinterest and Instagram taught us that our self-care could look good enough to be consumed. We indulged this with beautiful studio photos of our workspace, photos of our trips outdoors, and our home-cooked meals. We even recorded our indulgences.

For many of us, all of that performative self-care has actually become a source of stress. 2019 is the year to take back self-care for ourselves and pare down our routines to the things that we enjoy.

In many cases, this also means bringing those things that relax us into the home, so we can build our lives without the joy of missing out.

2. Mindful Fitness Takes a Technical Turn

As science expands to understand the connections between the mind and the body, we feel more comfortable looking at the technical aspects of our workouts again.

This means that going forward, workout trends will focus on training specific muscles and physical outcomes, as well as other applications of science to our workouts. This has led to studios full of rowing machines that, for many, are taking preference over spinning bikes.

In many cases, this focus on technical excellence makes our workouts less glamorous and shorter, causing us to bring them back home into the private sphere.

Top Health Trends to Follow in 2019Shorter workouts, such as intense 30-minute sessions, are becoming popular as a way to avoid triggering cortisol, the stress hormone, which can wreak havoc on our bodies when unregulated. Resistance bands are booming as aids to effective workouts that can be done at home.

3. It’s Time to Stop Ignoring Our Circadian Rhythms

Sleep tracking is becoming more important to how we structure our daily lives and is definitely one of the top health trends this year. Our circadian rhythm regulates two hormones:

  • Cortisol, which should trigger in the morning and boosts us to wake up in the morning.
  • Melatonin, which helps us to wind down and feel tired at night.

When these hormones are confused, they can leave us feeling tired throughout the day and awake at night. Indeed, cortisol’s relationship to stress may explain why we often feel anxious when lying awake at night.

Distressed circadian rhythms can lead to weight gain, diabetes, and high blood pressure.

This is why many people are taking steps to establish stable sleep cycles. The whistle has already been blown on the blue lights from our technology screens, leading to glasses with blue-light blocking filters and night modes on electronics.

The next step is regulating the circadian rhythm by going to bed and waking up at around the same time every night. Whether that means regulating the moisture in our environments, reducing noise in the area, or other items, people are putting more effort towards their rest.

4. Regenerative Agriculture and Climate-Friendly Practices

Consumers and brands alike are coming to understand that our own well-being is strongly connected to the planet’s wellbeing.

To address these concerns, regenerative agriculture is becoming an important concept throughout the food industry. Regenerative practices make agriculture more environmentally sustainable, as they work to preserve topsoil from erosion, conserve groundwater, and promote carbon sequestering.

Another trending industry in 2019 is the production of plant-based fish. Fish has long been among the favorite proteins for the health-concerned.

However, concerns regarding the damage of overfishing on the environment are causing many to pause before picking up fish. Plant-based alternatives for seafood are looking to disrupt the industry.

They are often developed from pea and potato starch, using nutrient-rich beans for protein.

5. Using a Planner to Schedule Time for Yourself

Planners and journals have become more than basic schedulers, as more and more people are using analog planners to keep track of their activities.

This is especially prevalent in bullet journal culture, where the same journal can be a planner, habit tracker, mood tracker, meal plan, and more. Journals have become the place where people of all professions and backgrounds organize their lives, develop goals and hobbies, and express their creativity.

A planner with open resources can help you get ideas off your mind, collect lists in one place, budget, keep track of things such as weight loss, and strategize for problem-solving.

They can be as minimalistic or decked out and color-coded as you want, with as little or as much structure as you need for your goals. Ultimately, journaling is an amazingly healthy practice for your mind, as it allows you to set down your priorities while clearing your head of worries and expectations.

6. New Attitudes Toward Alcohol

Many individuals who are concerned with health, wellness, and the preservation of their bodies are stepping away from drinking alcohol. We see this in a growing prevalence of restaurants without drink menus and with virgin cocktail offerings.

Ditching alcohol is a nutrition choice that boosts brainpower, as many looks to take their lives into their own hands by removing addictive and mind-altering substances from their diets. Additionally, drinking less doesn’t just help the body, it also helps the budget.

Also when it comes to alcohol, we are starting to see a growing industry of organic wine.

In the past, wine, beer, and liquor offer a blind spot for the increasingly health-conscious population. The industry is an enabler since alcohol bottles do not require ingredient labels.

Non-organic wines will likely include herbicides and pesticides, as well as chemical additives, colorants, and tannin softeners. When it comes to organic wine, you want to look at grapes grown without pesticides or herbicides, as well as grapes that ferment using their own wild yeast.

Wrap-Up

As we move into the new year, we continue to be conscious of the effects of our regular health rituals and goals, as well as those potential effects on the environment.

The tone of these top health trends generally comes down to pulling back, appreciating our home spaces, and apportioning our energies to the things we care about.