As luxury wellness offerings such as spa days and residential retreats carry price tags many cannot afford, yoga teachers, community organisers, charities, and health experts are pointing to lower-cost alternatives including free outdoor meetups, allotment gardening, birdwatching, crochet, outdoor exercise, and online sound bath recordings.
Free and low-cost wellness options gaining ground as spa and retreat prices rise
As luxury wellness offerings such as spa days and residential retreats carry price tags many cannot afford, yoga teachers, community organisers, charities, and health experts are pointing to lower-cost alternatives including free outdoor meetups, allotment gardening, birdwatching, crochet, outdoor exercise, and online sound bath recordings.
Yoga teacher Anastasiia Mirraslavska hosts a monthly outdoor gathering called Sunday Reset in London, meeting in a different city park each time for yoga and meditation, with some sessions free and others priced at about £10. Online meditation sessions are also held via Zoom. Mirraslavska told the BBC she wanted 'to create a space where people could experience [yoga and meditation] in a simple and accessible way.'
In Liverpool, model Erica Correa has started a regular invitation-only gathering called Soft Sunday, bringing people together for what she describes as curated wellness experiences, including a pilates class followed by a beauty experience. She told the BBC: 'Everything about Soft Sunday is intention over expense. Wellness is more about the decisions that you make in life, how you protect your time.' She said she hopes to open the sessions to more people soon.
Research by the Royal Horticultural Society found that people who garden every day report higher wellbeing and lower stress levels. Councils in England offer allotment plots for an annual fee, and community gardens — listed on the Good to Grow map and the RHS website — often welcome volunteers without charge and supply tools and equipment. Damien Newman, training, education and consultancy manager at the gardening charity Thrive, said community gardens provided 'the opportunity to be engaged in gardening and connect to a welcoming social group,' adding that gardening is 'good across our holistic health spectrum, good physically, cognitively, socially, psychologically and emotionally.'
Research cited in the source suggests that 30 minutes of birdwatching can boost happiness, improve wellbeing, and help people feel more connected to nature, while separate research has linked crochet with improved wellbeing, with participants reporting it helped them cope with stress, grief, chronic illness, and other life challenges. Both activities can be taken up at minimal cost, with birdwatching groups searchable through the RSPB's website.
Running now involves approximately 7.1 million adults in the UK, an increase of more than 500,000 over the past year, according to the source. The NHS Couch to 5K programme offers a free nine-week plan for beginners. Almost 1,500 free parkrun events take place in the UK each weekend.
Lyz Cooper, founder of the British Academy of Sound Therapy, told the BBC that while the quality of online sound bath recordings varies, good ones exist and advised listeners to seek out recordings by experienced practitioners or established organisations. She said: 'If you wear over-ear headphones, lie down, close your eyes and make sure you are in a place where you're not going to be disturbed, the therapeutic benefits of listening are potentially very good.' She added: 'Ultimately, the most important thing is that people find an approach they'll genuinely use.'
- The source does not state the specific annual fee range charged by councils for allotment plots.
- The source does not identify the body or bodies responsible for the running participation figures of 7.1 million adults or specify the period over which the increase of more than 500,000 was measured.
- The source does not state the methodology, sample size, or date of the RHS research on daily gardening and wellbeing.
- The source does not state the methodology, sample size, or source publication for the research linking 30 minutes of birdwatching to improved wellbeing.
- The source does not state the methodology, sample size, or source publication for the research linking crochet to improved wellbeing.
- The source does not state whether any of the named meetups, programmes, or resources are available outside the United Kingdom.