5 Reasons Why You Should Add Wellness To Your Next Event

As we increasingly work in remote or hybrid environments, events have become an even more integral part of our social and professional lives. From conferences to summits, these events bring people together to connect, learn, and grow. But not all events are the same. Without careful consideration and planning these events can be physically and mentally taxing leading to lower engagement and retention. That's where wellness and mindfulness come in. By incorporating wellness activities into events, organizers can provide attendees with an opportunity to unwind, recharge, and take care of themselves. From yoga classes to meditation sessions, wellness activities can have a profound impact on attendees' mental and physical health, ultimately enhancing their experience at the event. In this article, we'll explore our top five reasons to add wellness to your next event and why it's becoming increasingly important:

1. Boost attendee engagement and retention: Integrating wellness activities into your event can help attendees feel more engaged and even help with the retention of the content. The increase in digital communication and screen time during the pandemic left many of us with increased mental fatigue and decreased attention spans. By providing opportunities for relaxation and mindfulness, attendees will be more likely to remember key information from your event and have more mental capacity for socializing and building community.

2. Promote mental and physical health: Wellness activities can help attendees reduce stress, improve their mental and physical health, and boost their energy levels. This can lead to improved productivity, creativity, mood, and overall well-being.

3. Foster community and networking: Whether it’s an all-level yoga class or a floral bouquet-making class these experiences can foster a sense of community among attendees and provide opportunities for networking and relationship-building in a relaxed setting. We often find that the connections formed between coworkers or attendees in the intimate environment of an event are deeper and more meaningful than the hosts expect.

4. Get the most for your money: Events are by no means cheap to pull off. They require effort and money to do well. By incorporating wellness you can ensure that your attendees are taking home more of the experience and information you’re sharing. If it’s a corporate retreat attendees have more opportunities to build relationships. If it’s a leadership conference they will be able to retain more and have more energy for learning and collaboration. Wellness activities like meditation have even been shown to increase creativity and output so if results are what you’re after, wellness will help you get the most out of every dollar.

5. Stand out from the competition: Wellness is on the rise and including it in your event means you have your finger on the pulse of what attendees are looking for. Activities like boot camp, community impact boards, and even sound baths will set you apart from other events in your industry. Attendees are becoming increasingly interested in wellness, and by catering to this trend, you can attract a wider audience and prove your willingness to invest in innovative trends for the health and happiness of your audience.

In today's fast-paced and ever-changing world, wellness and mindfulness have become increasingly important while events have become an even more integral part of our social and professional lives. Incorporating these two things–wellness and events–can have a profound impact on the attendees’ experience long after the event has ended. By incorporating wellness into your events, you not only show your willingness to invest in innovation but also help attendees take care of themselves and create a memorable experience.

To learn more about how we add wellness to events at TRILUNA shoot us an email at Hello@TRILUNAwellness.com or check out our work page. We’re dedicated to making wellness more accessible and enjoyable for all your attendees while making your job as an event coordinator or planner easier.

The Best Group Yoga Poses For All Levels!

Work looks a lot different than it did two years ago, and we are all just trying to manage it the best we can. At TRILUNA, we always want to ensure we provide you with the resources to make your work life less stressful.

Here are a couple chair yoga poses that can be done in the office or the comfort of your home office if you’re looking for some mid-day movement and mindfulness. Each pose is designed to be beginner friendly but also great for those who have been practicing for a long time. We recommend doing a few rounds of each of these either at the start of the day or after sitting for a while.

• Side Body Stretches and Twist: great for stretching the ribs, shoulders, and arms. Engage your core to keep from putting too much emphasis on your low back and lean to one side, stretching your arm as far to the opposite side as you can (without pain, discomfort is likely but if it feels sharp or painful back off).

• Forward Fold (with an added twist in the lower back and wrist rolls): a simple forward fold is one of our favorite ways to get inverted. Taking a few deep breaths here can help decrease blood pressure and promote relaxation.

Bonus move - Child’s Pose. Great for opening the hips and relaxing the body. If this feels too intense you can sit on top of a pile of pillows. Work your way back slowly, ALWAYS avoiding pain but embracing discomfort.

Productivity Paranoia As A Poison

I have not been able to stop thinking about this article from Morning Brew. In particular this part:

"In a survey released by Microsoft yesterday, only 12% of business leaders said they are fully confident that their hybrid employees are productive at work, compared to 87% of employees who say they are productive."

87% of employees feel they are productive. Only 12% of their bosses think that's true. 12%?!

We've been doing corporate wellness and stress management for four years now and time and time again we're asked to bring in our stress management workshops. Demand INCREASED for these services as more employees moved to remote work. The number one question we're asked: "How do we create on and off time with work? How do we set boundaries?"

In most cases, people are working MORE at home both to prove that they're working and because, without commutes, they have more time to do so.

According to this article, this discrepancy between leadership and employees is leading to productivity paranoia which "can result in intense virtual tracking."

I once worked a marketing job where our boss put cameras behind our backs and pointed at the computer screen to ensure we were never, ever not working. It was a fear-mongering tactic and what it managed to do was scare me half to death, dramatically increase my stress, and eventually caused me to leave the company altogether. My work quality decreased because I wasn't taking the downtime to regroup, focus, and strategize. The increased tracking didn't make me better at my job. It made me worse.

Micromanaging rarely works. If leadership is setting strategic goals, planning with their teams, and setting regular check-ins against those goals there should be zero confusion about productivity. The purpose of productivity is to PRODUCE something. Not just to keep everyone busy.

Have any of you had this experience? We want to hear from both employees and employers. Does this article resonate?

https://lnkd.in/expCBQEy

[Picture of a very young marketing version of me.]

4 Strategies for Better Mental Wellbeing

It's finally May! The best month of the year because for 31 days everyone is talking about our favorite subject: mental health awareness (not to be confused with wellness, fitness, or dieting–we’re talking mental and emotional health).

To celebrate mental health awareness month we are sharing some of our favorite easy, accessible strategies for mental well-being:

1. Understand the difference between stress + stressor: The stressor is the workplace conflict. The stressor is an unmanageable workload, caregiving, an unsolvable problem, racism and microaggressions that wears you down day after day. The stress itself is your body's reaction to that stressor. Influencing the stressor isn't always possible, we might not be able to make our boss a great leader or eliminate the conflict with a coworker, but there is something we can do to influence the physiological stress! 

2. Complete the cycle: To influence the stress we have to complete the cycle–allow our bodies to cycle through the cascade of hormones and physiological responses activated when we’re in fight or flight. While there are lots of ways to do this, the ones that get the most attention are movement and mindfulness. Just a few minutes of movement and a few rounds of breathwork can start to down-regulate our nervous system and help us move out of fight or flight.

3. Get vulnerable: We get it, everyone is talking about vulnerability, but every time we speak publicly about our struggles and our wins around mental health there is, inevitably, at least one person that comes up to us and says, "I thought I was the only one that deals with this." And mental health often works that way. For so long we’ve kept it in the dark, locked behind closed doors, dealing with it alone. But naming something gives you power over it. You can start small by talking to friends or family, but keep in mind that you get to set the terms of that conversation because people will respond to you with their own internal dialogue, biases, and experiences. If you don’t want advice let your loved one know at the onset of the conversation that you want to share your experience and are working through it but you’re not looking for advice. If you do want advice ask for it specifically: do you want experience shares, recommendations, or anything else! If talking to loved ones feels scary a neutral third party like a therapist can be an incredible asset. 

4. Grief, Grief Everywhere: “Grief Everywhere” is the title of an Atlantic article that popped up in our Apple News feed last month. We clicked on it immediately because we resonated with it so deeply. Grief has been everywhere. On a personal level we have lost loved ones, friends, and pets, as a society many of us feel like we have lost time and opportunity, as a community we have often felt disconnected and alone. Grief is, in fact, everywhere. The line that stood out to me most was this, “We must not mistake a return to ‘normal’ life as the end of someone’s pain.” As we move through the rest of this month we encourage you to check in with the way grief plays on your mental health and to be aware that those around us may look fine but truly be struggling. Check in with each other and as we often say, “if you need the help, get the help.” If you don’t know where to start you can find a list of resources here.

Mental well-being is an incredibly complicated, difficult, and unique-to-you conversation to get started. Taking care of your mental health can include setting boundaries, investing in self-care, engaging with your community, practicing vulnerability, and seeking professional help. It's your journey and you get to decide how you embark on it. Our hope is that you know you're not alone, that there are resources available to you if you need them, and there is no shame in seeking the help you need.

To get started on your stress management journey join our course here. If you’re ready to jump right into therapy check out our resources here.