It is a mark of how far we’ve come in terms of taking care of our bodies and minds, that when we talk about friends travelling to a three-day festival, it’s not necessarily to listen to live bands and get wasted. Instead, wellness festivals have captured the imagination of millennials in touch with their health.
These festivals are nutrition conferences, fitness bootcamps and meditation retreats all rolled into one: there is no set format. Here, you can zumba with strangers, strike up friendships and yoga poses with equal ease, compete on monkey bars, exchange healthy recipes or kick back and meditate.
The trend has caught on in India as well, with festivals such as Harmony Fest by The Yoga Institute in Mumbai, Vitality Hours by Antidote in Delhi and FitUp Fest in Chennai.
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So should you go to one? “The number of people with lifestyle-related diseases is increasing every day. So we need to be more self aware... Conditions shouldn’t creep up on us,” says Delhi-based yoga practitioner Gunjan Kochhar. “These festivals can act as an introduction to that. Impressed with the idea, Gunjan is planning to collaborate with others in the wellness space to start a festival as well. “There are so many people with innovative ideas and therapies, who should be brought together under one roof.”
Chennai-based Rahul Gopal, co-founder of lifestyle clinic, The Formula, agrees: “Right now, there is so much information floating around online that people may be confused. We need a space where we can get together opinion leaders, who can present scientific ideas on wellness.”
Three days may not be enough to change someone’s life, but the idea is to take away some lessons. “These festivals help promote general awareness about good nutrition, fitness, recovery and meditation. The more of these, the more the ecosystem grows,” he says.
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However, when it comes to meditation and mental peace, is practising it along with 50 other people, in a place you’re not familiar with, the best idea?
“You can be alone, but still surrounded by a million thoughts that you can’t escape,” says Gunjan. “On the other hand, if you’re along with a group of people who share your beliefs and are on the same wavelength as you, the positive energy only increases.”
In this column, we decode health trends and decide if it’s all just ‘hype’ or actually ‘happening’