The wellness market adapts to the Coronavirus crisis
Article written by Laure Wagner published in Le Bilan about the Telehypnosis platform set up by mhp | centrum and Marta Hegyaljai Python which brought together some fifty Hypnosis practitioners from all over French-speaking Switzerland. The surprising benefits of remote HypnoMeditation in times of pandemic. A natural method that combines the benefits of two mental relaxation techniques: hypnosis and meditation. Thanks to hypnosis, you quickly enter a state of peaceful tranquility, enabling you to fully integrate the suggestions of mindfulness meditation. A natural and highly effective technique for restoring well-being and morale!
The coronavirus affects our mental and psychic health. The health crisis and its consequences - inactivity, isolation, confinement - are undermining the morale of Europeans, who are prey to stress, anxiety and even depression.
Making yourself useful
Faced with this unprecedented situation, Petit Bambou was one of the first to react. The online meditation app, which boasts 4.7 million users worldwide, including 300,000 in Switzerland, decided to make some of its programs available free of charge for adults, as well as introductory sessions for children and teenagers. "We wanted to react quickly to bring our help to all those in need at this particular time: all those who are on the front line on a daily basis, but also parents and children confined to the home", explains Benjamin Blasco, co-founder of Petit Bambou.
The French startup has also set up a collective meditation session with a dozen volunteer experts, live from Monday to Friday at 9am. The aim is to offer everyone a moment of well-being and exchange before starting the day. And it's been a great success: "The number of users has tripled in the last few days", says Benjamin Blasco.
Thomas Busigny guided Monday's session on joy. This is not a new exercise for him. For several years now, the Belgian psychologist and psychotherapist has been organizing collective meditation programs in small groups in his practice in Toulouse: "A lot of people meditate alone", he explains, "the collective dimension brings a real plus: exchange between people. With the introduction of confinement in France, I wanted to make myself useful, so I decided to launch a new daily public meditation workshop for all French speakers on the Zoom platform."
For a week now, around a hundred people have been taking part in these sessions every day: some are used to this type of exercise, but for others it's a first... "According to Thomas Busigny, "There's a real demand for this type of training, which will grow with the crisis. People have become aware of the need to reconnect and of their capacity for resilience.
Resilience as a remedy
Resilience - or "the ability to bounce back and grow in the face of adversity" - is a subject dear to Alexia Michiels. In her book L'Elan de la résilience, published in 2017 by Editions Favre, the co-founder of the Resilience Institute Europe details one hundred "practical keys" for developing our personal resilience on a daily basis. For example: "take the time to calm down by exercising your breathing", "avoid screens before going to bed", "remember good memories to stimulate a positive emotion"... For Alexia Michiels, these easy-to-apply exercises make perfect sense in these times of crisis: "You have to be disciplined, but you also have to be able to make adjustments when necessary.
For the past ten years, the Geneva-based Belgian consultant has been helping companies develop their resilience skills to meet the challenge of transforming our societies, by putting into practice the theoretical teachings of Dr. Sven Hansen, founder of the Resilience Institute in New Zealand. In response to the coronavirus crisis, she and her team urgently set up a 100% digital diagnosis and support program for all companies directly or indirectly affected by Covid-19.
She has teamed up with around fifty independent colleagues to launch a fully secure online consultation platform, sponsored by the MHP contemporary therapies center in Lausanne. Throughout the pandemic period, they are offering sessions at the solidarity rate of 60CHF. "Our aim is twofold", explains Florence Noël, "we wanted to mobilize to bring our help to all those who are experiencing additional stress and anxiety at the moment and, through this action, we also want to provide economic support to all self-employed people deprived of income during the crisis."
Move well, eat well, live well
To live well, you also need to move well and exercise. Yoga and pilates are two of the most popular activities. These disciplines are popular because they allow you to work both body and mind, notably through breathing exercises. Offers have long been available on the Internet (Asana Rebel, Alo Moves, Cyberobics...) and most of these platforms are currently offering attractive rates. So as not to lose their customers, traditional structures are getting organized and teachers are turning to video... as best they can!
Cathy Maeder runs the Pilates Focus studio in Chene-Bourg. "You have no choice but to adapt. When I was forced to stop classes, my clients immediately contacted me to ask how they could continue working at home, so I downloaded the Zoom app and decided to continue all my classes online." But for Cathy Maeder, nothing can replace physical contact and exchange: "I've been following my customers for several years, and for some of them I know their faults and their needs, so it's difficult not to be able to correct them directly", she laments, "you have to choose the type of exercises carefully and be much more rigorous in your vocabulary."
Soraya Francisco set up Studio SoHam in Geneva's Pâquis district four years ago. And for her, video offers new opportunities, so she relayed a call on social networks to open her courses free of charge to new people via the Join.me platform. "Word of mouth has worked well: around twenty people take part in each class, on average, and more than half are not studio members," she notes. "I think there's a new market developing," she continues, "particularly with shy people who are more open to this type of practice by staying in their own environment, and in this case, online yoga abolishes distances and creates additional links!"
Other physical and artistic activities, such as dance, music and even cooking, are being revived in this period of confinement. All can be practiced at home. The Superprof website puts students in touch with private tutors in over a thousand disciplines, from academic subjects to leisure activities. "For several years now, we've seen a resurgence of interest in all kinds of wellness activities: in seven years, demand has doubled," notes Camille Lemardele, Director of Operations at Superprof.
Faced with the travel restrictions and confinement measures in place in most European countries, the French startup, which is present in 28 countries, including Switzerland, with 27,000 teachers, asked all its employees to give their lessons exclusively by webcam. "Some teachers were already doing this; for the others, we've prepared a short practical guide outlining the various possible applications and the rules to follow to produce a good-quality video." The aim is to meet demand and help people make the most of the time they have to soothe their bodies and minds.
