With a juice bar or spin studio in every neighborhood, it’s clear LA loves all things wellness. Here, we’ve rounded up eight places that take self-care to the next level.
Across Los Angeles, wellness centers are helping students stay healthy and attend school more consistently. The Trust’s new Data xChange report shows the impact of these clinics.
Mindfulness and Meditation
Mindfulness meditation is a part of wellness Los Angeles that focuses on breathing methods and guided imagery to relax the body and help reduce stress. It’s a practice that requires discipline and can feel overwhelming at first, especially when the mind starts to wander, as it often does. But that’s the point: to notice when your thoughts go off on a tangent and return them to the current moment. The goal is to practice, and over time, it becomes easier to calm the mind.
Many people find that mindfulness improves their ability to regulate their emotions and cope with difficult life situations. It can also increase self-esteem and improve cognitive functioning. It builds resilience, which is particularly important for people dealing with chronic illness and other challenges.
One study found that mindfulness meditation may reduce physiological markers of stress, like a faster heart rate and cortisol levels. Another study showed that it reduces anxiety and helps with symptoms of depression.
Incorporating mindfulness into a wellness routine can be challenging, but it’s worth the effort. It’s a good idea to work with your health care team when you start a meditation practice. They can offer guidance and support, as well as connect you with a therapist who can teach mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) or mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT). These are therapeutic interventions that are proven to have benefits. They involve weekly group classes and daily mindfulness exercises to practice at home over an 8-week period.
Sustainable Wellness
The same wellness trends that gave birth to green juices and yoga on the beach are now being rolled out with an emphasis on sustainability. Sustainable wellness practices aim to promote long-term habits that benefit an individual’s health in all areas of life, from mental and emotional health to nutrition and fitness.
Sustainable wellness includes a commitment to protect the ecosystems around you, such as by eating more locally grown or organic foods. It also involves reducing the amount of waste you generate, such as by reusing items instead of throwing them away. By practicing these sustainable lifestyle behaviors, you can contribute to a healthier environment for yourself and those who come after you.
Another way to practice sustainable wellness is by using less energy. This can be done by using energy-efficient lighting, driving electric cars, and limiting the use of heating or air conditioning. You can also make an effort to reduce your carbon footprint by recycling and using environmentally friendly cleaning products.
In Los Angeles, sustainable wellness is influenced by celebrity culture and the city’s love of a healthy lifestyle. Many local wellness spots offer detox smoothies, acai bowls, and acupuncture to keep local celebrities feeling their best. It’s important to understand your consumer base and find unique ways to align with these wellness trends.
Fitness Centers with a Social Side
If you want to spend time in a workout setting where high-fives and huddles with friends are taken more seriously than your pace, check out one of the many sweat societies popping up across the US. Most are members-only but some, like Continuum in New York City (headed by former fitness tech entrepreneur and Today Show health correspondent Jeff Halevy), offer hyper-personalised services that include biometric screenings and body composition tests via AI-driven apps.
Other clubs focus on wellness and social self-care, offering everything from buzzy treatments like lymphatic drainage massages and MLX i3 Dome detox sessions to yoga and breathwork classes. In Los Angeles, TruFusion is a popular pick. The swanky, members-only “fitness sanctuary” offers heated and unheated group exercise classes from a roster of high caliber coaches. The onsite cafe serves healthy Colombian food and drinks. The desert-themed lounge has low-slung embroidered sofas and art installations. The spa has a full menu of massages including the Icoone Roboderm, which uses Far Infrared Rays to stimulate cellulite reduction; and a wellness treatment program that includes Ayurvedic Abhyanga and moon cycle facials.
For a less expensive option, there’s November Project Los Angeles, which hosts free outdoor workouts in Downtown LA on Tuesdays and Thursdays. And if you’re looking for an opportunity to get some fresh air while getting a great workout, take your dog for a walk at the South Coast Botanic Garden, which offers Dog Walking Days every month on their 87 acre property.
Preventive Healthcare
Just like you bring your car in for an oil change, it’s important to get routine medical care to keep healthy and catch anything before it becomes a major problem. Preventative health includes a regular check-up, vaccinations and screenings to prevent disease and illness. A pap smear test and mammogram are two examples of routine health screenings for women that can save lives by finding cancer early on when it’s most treatable.
Founded in 1996, Worksite Wellness LA is a non-profit primary healthcare organization that was born out of the need to balance the inequalities of healthcare by providing preventive healthcare and education to low income families in South Los Angeles and surrounding communities. The program partners with light-manufacturing companies to offer their employees wellness seminars and access to free healthcare services.
The Affordable Care Act made a historic commitment to invest in prevention, by removing cost sharing for preventive services and expanding community health initiatives. Wellness Los Angeles is a hub for these prevention programs, with clinics in schools and communities across the city. The Los Angeles Trust works with many of these programs by supporting data collection, research and best practices through a Learning Collaborative. We also connect these wellness centers with student health initiatives from The L.A. Trust and other funders. Student achievement depends on student wellness, and school-based health centers are indispensable to this mission.
