Top Wellness Trends on the East Coast

While wellness-oriented cities like LA and Sedona are known for cutting-edge spa treatments and New Age alternative medicine, the East Coast has its own wealth of wellness fads. From the high-end spas of New York City to fitness trends across the South, we highlighted the most popular wellness trends on the East Coast. These are trends that are designed to improve the health and wellbeing of their followers, and they’re only gaining popularity. Read on for more information about the top wellness trends on the East Coast.

Lymphatic Health

A major new trend on the East Coast is the lymphatic drainage massage, a treatment that targets the often-overlooked lymphatic system. This system of the body is responsible for clearing out the fluid leaks out of our cells and tissues, which often leads to swelling. Many people don’t realize that the lymphatic system is closely tied to the immune system, and therefore crucial to a person’s overall health. “It’s the job of the lymphatic system to collect all of this excess liquid, filter out nasties like cellular waste, bacteria, and pathogens, and return it to your bloodstream,” explains Well and Good. 

HigherDOSE is a bodywork studio in New York that offers lymphatic drainage services. The treatment focuses on stimulating the body’s fascia, or the connective tissue between our muscle and skin. Lymphatic massages can reduce swelling and improve circulation around the lymphatic system, according to Medical News Today. They can also be used to treat a variety of health conditions, including lymphedema, fibromyalgia, insomnia, stress, and migraine episodes, to name a few. While the trend has taken off in New York, many massage therapists offer them around the country. Book a lymphatic massage near you!

Muscle Recovery

Whether you’re a runner or a cyclist, or you’re trying to lift as much as you can, a variety of workout trends have helped consumers meet their fitness goals. That said, fitness junkies often make the mistake of ignoring muscle recovery, or the post-workout muscle care that allows them to progress as athletes. NBC News highlights the popularity of foam rollers, which help improve joint range of motion, “break up scar tissue, and reduce post-exercise muscle soreness.” Depending on the type of workouts you’re doing, foam rolling could be a crucial step in post-exercise muscle care. 

Another way to aid muscle recovery is through self-massaging or sports massaging. According to WebMd, massage can help move lactic acid around the body after a workout, which can accumulate at pressure points around the body and negatively affect performance. You can book a sports massage here.

Intuitive Eating

While every few years, a new crash diet seems to promise better-than-perfect results, many participants find them difficult to uphold or draining for their health. Intuitive eating represents a different approach to weight loss, one that takes into account the specific needs of the individual. It places more emphasis on the quality of the foods a person is eating, rather than restricting certain food groups or dramatically cutting calorie intake, according to My Domaine. By listening to your body and focusing on healthy, nutrient-rich foods, you might find that it’s easier to make healthy choices.

If you’re looking to incorporate healthier foods into your diet and overhaul your eating habits, you may want to consult a nutritionist.

Expanding Access to Yoga

Yoga is an ancient practice that has evolved over thousands of years in India and is practiced all over the world. That said, the stereotypical yogi in the US tends to be white, thin, and upper-class. In Miami, for example, despite the city’s large Latinx and Spanish-speaking population, there are very few yoga classes offered in Spanish. Rina Jakubowicz is trying to change that, according to Fast Company. She offers a bilingual yoga teacher training course specifically for Latinx women.

Her effort marks one of the biggest wellness trends on the East Coast: a push to expand access to yoga to communities of color and other demographics that are less-represented in the field. Book a yoga class today!

Meat Substitutes

The West Coast has long been a haven for vegans and vegetarians. Forbes rated cities based on their friendliness to non-meat eaters, and the West Coast dominated the top three slots. Hawaii and Oregon offer the most vegan restaurants per capita by a landslide, pointing to an already-dominant culture among herbivores out West.

That said, meat replacements are gaining popularity even outside of vegetarian strongholds. Companies like Burger King are starting to offer plant-based burgers across the US and Europe, signally a sea change in mainstream attitudes toward fake meat. Companies like Beyond Meat and the Vegetarian Butcher offer plant-based patties and other non-meat products that mimic the taste of real meat so perfectly, many people can’t tell them apart from the real thing. As people become more concerned about the carbon footprint of real meat, and as plant-based substitutes become cheaper and more sophisticated, the trend of “non-meat meat” is inescapable, even in omnivore strongholds on the East Coast.