The multi-disciplinary artist and author of Like a Bird and How to Cure a Ghost explores the commodification and appropriation of wellness through the lens of social justice, providing resources to help anyone participate in self-care, regardless of race, identity, socioeconomic status or able-bodiedness. Growing up in Australia, Fariha Róisín, a Bangladeshi Muslim, struggled to fit in. In attempts to assimilate, she distanced herself from her South Asian heritage and identity. Years later, living in the United States, she realized that the customs, practices, and even food of her native culture that had once made her different—everything from ashwagandha to prayer—were now being homogenized and marketed for good health, often at a premium by white people to white people. In this thought-provoking book, part memoir, part journalistic investigation, the acclaimed writer and poet explores the way in which the progressive health industry has appropriated and commodified global healing traditions. She reveals how wellness culture has become a luxury good built on the wisdom of Black, brown, and Indigenous people—while ignoring and excluding them. Who Is Wellness For? is divided into four sections, beginning with The Mind, in which Fariha examines the art of meditation and the importance of intuition. In part two, The Body, she investigates the physiology of trauma, detailing her own journey with fatphobia and gender dysmorphia, as well as her own chronic illness. In part three, Self-Care, she argues against the self-care industrial complex but cautious us against abandoning care completely and offers practical advice. She ends with Justice, arguing that if we truly want to be well, we must be invested in everyone’s well being and shift toward nurturance culture. Deeply intimate and revelatory, Who Is Wellness For? forces us to confront the imbalance in health and healing and carves a path towards self-care that is inclusionary for all.

Stephanie Alice Baker traces the emergence of wellness culture as a trillion-dollar industry, situating the wellness industry in a historical and cultural context, examining how the internet has altered our relationship to wellness and the popular assumption that the internet has democratised knowledge and culture.

Wellness culture promises a reprieve from the stress of long workdays, restrictive dieting, and punishing exercises through providing the alternative of a balanced lifestyle that simply focuses on feeling good. However, the reality of wellness culture is more complicated. While some assert that it successfully promotes well-being, others argue that it is simply a way of rebranding the dieting and exercise regimens that already existed, building an industry around the products and services that allegedly promote wellness. This volume clarifies the nebulous concept of "wellness" and explores how culture, business, and health intersect to create today's wellness culture.

Researching Contemporary Wellness Cultures brings together scholars examining the various ways and spaces in which wellness is constructed and practices within various sociological sub-disciplines across and in related fields including anthropology, cultural studies, and internet studies.

The fastest, easiest way to shift culture toward engagement and productivity Change Your Space, Change Your Culture is a guide to transforming business by rethinking the workplace. Written by a team of trail-blazing leaders, this book reveals the secrets of companies that discovered the power of culture and space. This insightful guide reveals what companies lose by viewing office space as something to manage or minimize. With practical tips and implementation details, the book helps the reader see that the workspace is, in fact, a crucial driver of productivity and morale. Change Your Space, Change Your Culture was born out of recent studies that expose truly outrageous "Oh, my God" realities: More than 70 percent of the workforce either hates their job or they are just going through the motions. Half of all office space is wasted. Those shattering facts exist because office space is generally regarded as "overhead" or "sunk cost." Most buildings today clearly communicate the low priority placed on people-friendly design. Poor workforce engagement is baked into the culture. This book provides guidance on turning this around, by rethinking and reshaping space to align with the way people work. Specifically, this book moves from the high-altitude view down to the details on how to: Discover the fastest, easiest and most cost-effective way to shift culture Add square footage by using space more effectively Boost employee engagement and vitality by the creative use of space Learn how space can become a powerful productivity tool We all know that design, space, and flow have a powerful effect on the human psyche. Our homes, museums, sports arenas, places of worship, and even airport terminals reveal that. Environment can inspire dread or enthusiasm, distraction or focus, collaboration or isolation. That's why the office must be designed to inspire the desired culture and workflow – if it's not properly designed, no program, training or rules will be effective over time. Change Your Space, Change Your Culture is the practical guide to office space, the foundation of an engaging culture.

This book analyzes the role of health apps to promote medicalization. It considers whether their use is an individual matter, rather than a political and social one, with some apps based on a medical framework positively promoting physical activity and meditation, or whether data-sharing can foster social discrimination.

This book presents a cultural history of human-animal relations in Germany, Japan, Russia and the United States, with a focus on the uses of animals for comfort, healing and in developing a sense of well-being. Fujimura and Nommensen discuss the contexts in which the culture of wellbeing has developed and incorporated alternative therapies with animals. The authors turn to qualitative research conducted over a period of two years in veterinary clinics, hospices, reading programs, search and rescue organizations as well as an extensive review of existing literature on cultural studies of human-animal relations to inform their analysis of complex ways in which humans and animals interact. The extent to which animals are accepted either as members of society or, in contrast, as mere material possessions poses a cultural contradiction leading to questions of the ethical treatment of animals.