The Sunday Digest 088
You can have it all, but how much do you want it?
Welcome to The Sunday Digest — a free Sunday newsletter featuring long (and some short) reads, original columns, things I’ve saved over the last week, relaxing playlists, episodes releases, exclusive product drops, and more. Yes, you can reply to this email. I’d love to hear from you. Or, if podcasts are more your speed on Sundays, we’ve got that too.
Sunday Read: Is wellness culture fueling a health anxiety crisis?
by Serena Smith for Dazed Beauty
From the moment you realize what anxiety feels like, it’s impossible to never register the thought of that anxiety again. It’s so palpable that you know it will always exist in some form or fashion whether justified or not, and it will rear its head in the moments you need it the least. Because, well, that’s kind of how anxiety works.
While writing The Sunday Scaries Podcast, I always found myself combing through health and wellness trends to see if there was anything worth covering. My requirements were as follows:
Is this actually healthy?
Is this science-based? If yes, is it too science-based to be entertaining?
If no, is it something that simply doesn’t need science?
Is it bougie?
While the last point obviously didn’t matter as much as the preceding three, I constantly found myself wondering, “When is all this wellness stuff… enough? Are we driving ourselves crazy by trying to not drive ourselves crazy?”
Much like any hobby that has subreddits attached to it, wellness is a slippery slope. This week’s Sunday Read (somewhat) explains why.
Here’s an excerpt:
Broadly speaking, wellness encourages prioritising our health – which sounds good in theory. But as the industry continues to boom, it’s becoming ever clearer that this obsession with being ‘well’ could actually be making us worried sick. We’re encouraged to constantly self-surveil, with new technologies enabling us to track how many steps we take, how many calories we burn, how many hours we sleep, and how fast our hearts beat. At the same time, the definition of ‘good health’ is shifting. Today, good health no longer merely constitutes ‘not being ill’: instead, largely thanks to the spread of wellness, health is now commonly regarded as an ongoing project to be continually worked on.
Read in full here.
The Sunday Haiku: “Sorry, I forgot to turn my alarm off.”
The sleep in your eye,
the forehead pillow wrinkles,
the damn snooze button.
New Episode › Retail Therapy 078: The Summer '24 In/Out List
What's in this summer? What's out this summer? Now that we're in 100-degree June weather in Austin, it was officially time for this season's In/Out Lists.
Listen to Retail Therapy on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube (see above), and anywhere else podcasts are found. And a reminder to follow Retail Therapy on Substack!
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