Give yourself Grace: Tuning out the wellness noise

Everyone’s a wellness expert nowadays. One search for ‘wellness tips’ on any social media platform will return hundreds of thousands of videos by nutritionists, personal trainers, spiritual coaches, neuroscientists, yoga instructors, and even lifestyle influencers. And while each of them claims to have the ‘key’ to a healthy, happy, well-balanced life, they very often contradict each other. Take the recent swarm of educational videos on exercise, for example. While the PT training the world’s leading athletes tells you that high-impact workouts are great for your cardiovascular health, energy levels, and fitness, the Pilates instructor with 100k followers on TikTok tells you that HIIT (High-Intensity Interval Training) only spikes your stress. The topic of exercise isn’t the only victim; the more gut health videos I seem to watch, the less I seem to know about it. Do I really have to eat only whole, organic, nutritionally-dense foods? Or is it all due to cortisol levels? Or maybe even a personal relationship that’s hindering my peace and wellbeing? To sum it up, an online search for genuinely helpful wellness advice sounds a lot like the scene in a sitcom where the whole family is arguing, and you can’t catch a word of what anyone’s saying because they’re all shouting over each other. Eventually, though, you’ll hear “Everyone…QUIET!”, as one family member makes the rest snap out of their incessant bickering. Consider this article that family member.

[Content on wellness] quickly becomes damaging when unqualified people bring their advice to the table

When we’re fed contradictory advice about wellness, we’re forced to mentally sort through it all, deciding what’s jargon and what’s actually useful. But more than this, we’re held to increasingly complex standards of what constitutes a life optimised for wellbeing. While I do believe that the increasing volume of educational content on wellness is a positive sign of a society that’s beginning to care more and more about the health of its people, it quickly becomes damaging when unqualified people bring their advice to the table. For this reason, you should always check a user’s credentials before you decide to implement their precious nuggets of information into your lifestyle. A good sign is if they’re recognised in their field, and if they have relevant, reputable qualifications. If you can’t find this information on their social media page, I’d recommend searching them up online.

Another way I’ve tuned out some online wellness noise is by unfollowing ‘influencers’. Many influencers’ jobs are to present their lifestyle as aspirational, in order to (as it says on the tin) influence you to achieve a similar one. But the problem I found with consuming this kind of lifestyle content was that it often included specific exercise regimes, rigid diets, and extortionately expensive self-care practices. If you’re like me, and this makes you feel overwhelmed and insecure, you can unfollow these creators to take their content out of your algorithms on social media platforms.

Make sure you implement only the advice that is realistic for you and your lifestyle

However, don’t let this article convince you that you should never take any wellness advice if it appears online. There are many people who are genuine experts, but you should be prepared to work a little bit to find them. Once you have, make sure you implement only the advice that is realistic for you and your lifestyle. This might mean trial and error over a certain period, but that’s okay. I don’t believe there’s one quick fix that perfects your wellbeing on the first try. You can start with what your life looks like already: can you think of a moment when you felt happy and healthy? Maybe it was on a bike ride with your sibling, cooking your favourite meal at home, on a walk with friends, or something as simple as doing your skincare this morning. Try to carve out time in your schedule to do more of whatever ‘wellness’ means for you. You don’t have to live someone else’s life to feel well – start with yours.