Key Takeaways
- Wellness drifted into aesthetics and performance culture — gorgeous routines, cute rituals, and viral cold plunges that look productive but don’t actually repair anything. Meanwhile the fundamentals — protein, sleep, minerals, strength training, hormones, nervous system care — quietly fell apart.
- Founders and midlife women aren’t burning out from a lack of discipline. They’re burning out because they’re running their bodies like a sprint, not a system. And health works exactly like business: infrastructure wins, not one-off hacks. You can’t out-supplement a shaky foundation.
- Traditional healthcare is still treating symptoms with surface-level solutions, while people are desperate for real data — blood work, metabolic markers, hormones, inflammation — the stuff that actually explains why they feel “off.”
- The next era of wellness won’t reward the prettiest routines. It’ll reward accuracy and honesty — brands and humans who simplify, slow down, and rebuild the basics before chasing optimization. Because the rebrand wellness needs isn’t new packaging. It’s information and education and going back to basics.
Does anyone else feel like staying healthy somehow became a full-time job?
One minute you’re trying to manage hormones (hi, perimenopause… thank you, midlife), and the next you’re juggling rules like you’re studying for the MCAT:
- Fast until 11.
- Hit 130g of protein.
- But only in an 8-hour window.
- Electrolytes.
- Minerals. Adaptogens. Sauna.
- Cold plunge.
- Strength train.
- Walk 10,000 steps (in a weighted vest).
- Eat organic. Avoid seed oils.
- Red light therapy.
- Track your sleep, your cycle, your mood, your biomarkers, your sex hormones, your macros…
And don’t forget to “reduce stress.”
It’s… a lot.
And it’s not just women feeling it. Men are being pulled into the same optimization Olympics, chasing longevity hacks while burning themselves out trying to feel “normal.”
But here’s the real issue:
Wellness stopped being about health.
It became about content.
The Wellness You Can Film Isn’t the Wellness That Works
Cold plunges look great in a Reel.
Fixing your cortisol? Not so much.
Red light panels? Aesthetic.
Eating enough protein to support your hormones? Not exactly sexy.
We’ve drifted into performance wellness — quick hits, cute rituals, perfectly framed habits that photograph well but don’t actually change anything.
And don’t get me wrong: I love a cute hot yoga shot at Ritual Hot Yoga, a good boutique gym selfie at Be Fitness, boutique classes like SolidCore, and bragging rights that I’m “doing it all.” I’m part of the problem too.
But the stuff that really moves the needle — sleep hygiene (which is hilarious as a mom, founder, CMO, and someone who likes having a life), blood sugar regulation, mineral balance, lifting weights, and actual stress management — none of that goes viral.
No chlorophyll water is saving you from five hours of sleep, nonstop pressure, and meals you barely remember eating.
But that never makes the feed.
Everyone Is an ‘Expert,’ But No One’s Actually Well
This is also where my marketing brain kicks in.
Everyone’s a “marketer” online, just like everyone’s a wellness guru. But most people don’t understand the strategy, psychology, or measurement behind what actually drives results — in business or in health.
Sometimes the most impactful work isn’t the prettiest.
(See my post, Pretty Doesn’t Scale.)
We’re in the messy middle of the wellness era:
More advice. Less accuracy.
Influencers prescribing protocols they’ve never tried.
TikTok diagnosing adrenal fatigue in 13 seconds.
Brands slapping “clean” and “longevity” on everything because it sells.
But most people don’t need hacks.
They need health literacy.
Let’s be honest – here’s the Spilled T: a lot of people can’t identify half the ingredients they eat, much less which ones disrupt hormones or increase inflammation.
And this is where wellness lost the plot.
We’re treating content like medicine… talking about solutions we saw in a Reel… but not actually doing anything.
(Again, guilty.)
And if you don’t understand the root cause, the science, or the system, you can’t fix the problem.
You can’t put concealer on a migraine because you lack Magnesium.
What Actually Works Isn’t Sexy, but It’s the Only Thing That Scales
As someone who’s tried every wellness trend: the Oura Ring, cold plunge, sauna, supplements, cyclesyncing, hot yoga, organic everything — the more I experiment, the more I realize health is exactly like business.
It’s systems + infrastructure, not sprints.
And the unglamorous basics still win:
- Protein
- Minerals
- Strength training
- Sleep
- Clean food
- Walking
- Hormone awareness
- Sunlight
- Stress regulation
- Hydration
Consistency wins over novelty.
It’s not aesthetic wellness.
It’s physiological wellness.
And it never looks as good as your fave fitness content creator, even though we all try.
Most people don’t need more routines.
They need more margin.
Founders Need a Different Kind of Wellness
We’re not burnt out because we lack discipline.
We’re burnt out because our bodies aren’t designed for nonstop pressure, minimal sleep, and food that isn’t actually food.
Your hormones don’t care how productive you were.
Your nervous system doesn’t reward you for hitting Q4 targets.
Your metabolism doesn’t adjust just because you’re “busy.”
And this is where traditional healthcare fails us.
You can’t solve chronic exhaustion with “manage stress.”
You need real data:
- full blood panel
- metabolic markers
- hormones
- thyroid
- micronutrients
- inflammation markers
- genetic testing, if possible
And you need a doctor who actually listens.
Not someone who tells you “everything is normal,” hands you a prescription your insurance company prefers, or makes a diagnosis based only on your 10-minute explanation while skipping every root cause.
You don’t need another generic protocol.
You need data. Real markers. A full picture of what your body is doing — not a surface-level guess.
Because in a world where AI is speeding up everything, the real competitive advantage won’t be more optimization or more hacks.
It’ll be recovery.
It’ll be knowing what your body is actually doing instead of guessing.
The same way brand isn’t what you say — it’s how you build — wellness isn’t what you post.
It’s what you practice consistently.
Where Wellness Goes Next
I think we’re at the beginning of a reset.Not a new wave of aesthetics.
A wave of accuracy.
Most people don’t want 19-step routines.
They don’t want hacks.
They just want to feel good again.
The brands that win won’t be the prettiest.
They’ll be the most honest and data-driven.
The ones grounded in science, not vibes.
The ones building wellness that works for real people with real responsibilities.
And don’t get me wrong — I’m here for the saunas, the ice baths, the HRT, the clean eating, the boutique gyms, the hot yoga. I love all of it.
It’s my sanctuary.
It’s how I lower my cortisol, reset my brain, and actually feel present in my body again.
But none of it matters if the foundation isn’t right.
People need the basics before the biohacks.
Good food. Real sleep. Strength. Minerals. Blood sugar control.
The unsexy things that keep your body from falling apart before you even get to the fun stuff.
The rebrand wellness needs isn’t new packaging — it’s permission.
Permission to slow down.
Permission to simplify.
Permission to come back to what actually works.
And honestly? We’re overdue.
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