2026 Challenge

Nowadays, wellness and its associated fancy buzzwords flood social media, advertisements, blogs, and hotel promotions — wellness, wellbeing, longevity, mindfulness, me time… not to mention the “mandatory” trends, diets, superfoods, and miracle supplements… pilates, matcha, collagen, hyaluronic acid, and so on. No wonder people feel lost, and even in the wellness space, there’s almost a pressure to ask: am I doing the right things? Am I doing them well enough? Am I falling behind? Am I eating right? Should I be buying this?

Before I start sharing my monthly wellness challenge reports for 2026, I want to try to explain what “wellness experience” means to me — in my own interpretation. I hope I’ll find a better way to phrase it along the way, because I’m not particularly fond of the term “wellness experience” myself.

The concept of wellness is often discussed in relation to overall health and quality of life. The World Health Organization (1948) defined health as “a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.” This definition laid the foundation for modern interpretations of wellness by emphasizing that well-being extends beyond physical health. Later, Bill Hettler, co-founder of the National Wellness Institute and a key figure in the development of contemporary wellness theory, further expanded the concept. Hettler (1976) described wellness as “an active process through which people become aware of, and make choices toward, a more successful existence.” Together, these perspectives highlight that wellness is both a holistic condition of well-being and an ongoing, proactive process of maintaining and improving one’s physical, mental, and social health.

So, when we look back at how experts have defined wellness, we can see that it’s an incredibly broad concept — broad enough to accommodate everyone’s own interpretation. So broad, in fact, that I’d even argue this kind of conscious process can never look the same for any two people. We are influenced by so many factors that what we need as a wellness experience to thrive — mentally, physically, or socially — can shift from month to month. And perhaps that’s also why I chose this challenge. To become more intentional in this area too — not to follow a fancy trend, but to seek out what I genuinely need to feel “okay.” Because when I’m okay, my family is okay.

I always feel it’s important to say this, because somehow over the years wellness has become intertwined with the concept of luxury — not necessarily in terms of services, but there’s often a sideways glance at mothers who are trying to pull themselves together so their energy levels are sufficient to keep the family running, with comments like “oh, she always has time for herself, massages and whatnot — instead of being with her kids / working / cooking / etc.” And yes, I am one of those mothers who feels guilty taking time for herself. But I’ve had to accept that you do need to recharge somewhere.

But back to the wellness challenge. If we set aside the trend madness pouring out of social media — the cha-cha-matcha, GLP-1, and everything else — and revisit the original definition, we can see that one of the most beautiful things about the concept of wellness is that it can mean something different to everyone. It’s such a broad concept that it encompasses the social and the solitary, silence and noise (like music), indoors and outdoors, warmth and cold. So in this challenge, I’m going to explore whether I can find — not the same ritual every month — but what I actually need in each month, in each season of the year, to do something for my mental and physical wellbeing.