The trendiest spas and wellness spaces help visitors relax, recharge — and form a new social circle. So far from a healthy lifestyle, club culture is gradually turning to the path of wellness.
Advertising.
At the end of last year, singer Melanie C threw a full-fledged rave in the sauna of the New York wellness space Othership and played a DJ set there. Dozens of people in swimsuits danced wildly, warmed up exclusively by music and bath rituals. No alcohol – just alternating heat and cold showers. The event went viral on the Internet: club culture, far from a healthy lifestyle, is gradually turning to the path of wellness.
Canadian startup Othership is a prime example of how modern spas are transforming into social spaces where people can hang out without any additional stimulants. What unites them here is not the clinking of glasses, but the desire to improve their health and make new friends. Othership burst onto the American market three years ago, and now the 90-seat sauna with ice pools and a large space for wellness raves is considered one of the trendiest places in New York.
Wellness third spaces are reaching their peak of popularity. The term “third space” was proposed in 1989 by American sociologist Ray Oldenburg to refer to locations outside the home (“first place”) and work (“second”), where people communicate and build social connections. Traditionally, these have been coworking spaces, bars and cafes, sports clubs and studios, where visitors are united by common hobbies. Now, saunas, swimming pools, hamams and wellness spaces have been added to this list, where various rituals are practiced: from relaxed and meditative ones, such as sound healing or conscious breathing, to sauna raves with loud electronic music in addition to bath procedures. The organizers describe their atmosphere as wellness meets wildness – “at the intersection of wellness and madness.” You can hear it a hundred times, but it's better to see it once – for example, on the Instagram of Danish wellness enthusiast and curator of modern sauna culture Andreas Reinhardt Krabholm @krabholmsauna. Or live – at Berlin's Liquid Room spa or London's Sauna Social Club.
Experts interpret the new wave of popularity of wellness spaces among residents of large cities as a response to total information overload, an excess of visual stimuli, anxiety and a demand for safe ways to unwind. But there is another reason – the need not to be alone. According to The Cigna Group – one of the world's leading players in the field of health care and insurance – almost two-thirds of Americans aged 18 to 25 often feel isolated. According to a report by Harvard Medical School, social isolation is equal in terms of health risk to smoking, obesity or a sedentary lifestyle. In contrast, guided breathing practices, group meditations and communication in a circle of like-minded people help to find new life supports. Modern wellness locations are becoming a place of escape from the “epidemic of loneliness”.
The format of rest and recovery in such institutions varies: chamber rituals with sound healing, meditation or steaming involve up to 10 people. Thematic wellness meetings held by Othership gather up to 90 participants – this already gives a sense of community, but does not turn the event into a festival. However, large-scale open training sessions like sauna raves in Berlin can attract hundreds of fans.
The trend for social wellness spaces is growing in Ukraine, too. Hat Spa in Kyiv and Integral Studio regularly host yoga, steam, and ice bath events for women’s groups of up to 15 participants.
Kyiv Morning Coffee Club brings together dozens of people who gather on Sundays at 9 am to drink coffee or enjoy a tea ceremony, dance to house music, do yoga, and find a new social circle. Electronic music, DJ sets, and a mood — everything is like in a nightclub. In Kyiv, this format already successfully coexists with raves on Kyrylivska. “The first Kyiv Morning Coffee Club was visited by 150 people,” notes the project's ideologist Ilya Zakharchenko. “One and a half thousand registered for the second one.”
It seems that our leisure habits are seriously evolving, and new wellness communities are changing the form of social interaction. People are increasingly seeking healthy pleasures: instead of a glass of sparkling wine, a cup of matcha on plant milk or a detox smoothie, instead of a party at the club, a morning set in the sauna or a yoga practice to house music. It turns out that this is no less exciting than a night on the dance floor. And if such an experience also eliminates loneliness, then this is perhaps the most desirable evolution of urban life.