by Angelica Palmerin
photos Courtesy Traveler Publications

Let me begin with a small historical confession: Humanity has never stopped trying to feel better and never will. The only thing that changes is the vocabulary… and spa prices. 

There’s a curious modern illusion—very much a product of our age of podcasts, supplements in amber glass jars, and minimalist chocolate, coffee or vanilla -scented spas—that wellness is some recent invention. Something that was born somewhere between Silicon Valley, our beautiful Tulum, and a laboratory where someone decided drinking liquid chlorophyll was probably a good idea.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

Human beings have been obsessed with wellness for thousands of years. Living longer, suffering less, digesting better and—if possible—doing all of it with a certain beauty and elegance. What has changed is the language, the technology, the laboratories… and, of course, the price of the treatment.

The earliest records, ideas, and reflections about what we now call wellness did not appear as a polished industry unveiled at an innovation expo. The concept formed slowly over time through three broad historical phases: ancient foundations of wellbeing, the rise of preventive thinking in the modern era, and the latest — the formalization of the term wellness in the twentieth century.

But before diving into academic timelines—which historians adore and the rest of us politely endure—let me share a personal moment that explains how I think about human wellbeing better than any scholarly paper ever could.

Some years ago, I visited Pompeii.

Walking through Pompeii is both unsettling and fascinating at the same time. The city was frozen in the precise moment when Mount Vesuvius decided to remind Rome who really owned the landscape. On August 24, 79 AD, shortly after midday, a cloud of ash, gas, and fire engulfed the city and permanently preserved a snapshot of everyday life.

According to historians, Pompeii began developing between the 6th and 5th centuries BC. It covered roughly 70 hectares and had around 20,000 inhabitants when the eruption occurred. Nearby were Herculaneum and Stabiae, the latter about 16 kilometers from the volcano, as well as Oplontis, a vacation area where the Roman elite spent long seasons enjoying magnificent seaside villas.

What surprised me—beyond the obvious tragedy—was the sophistication of daily life.

The Romans in Pompeii had thermal spas, gyms, public baths that functioned as social hubs, running water systems, and something that made me quietly laugh as I walked among the ruins: they had fast food. Yes, fast food.

Pompeii had establishments called thermopolia, where prepared dishes were sold to go. Think of them as the Uber Eats of the year 79, with the minor difference that the delivery guy was probably wearing sandals.

People bought hot meals, gathered in public baths to relax, exercised, socialized, and drank wine with deep devotion in honor of Bacchus.

In other words: they were already practicing wellness.

They didn’t call it wellness, of course. But the human impulse behind it was exactly the same one that today leads us to buy hydrolyzed collagen, personalize our nutrition, care about hygiene, exercise regularly, maintain balanced social lives, practice yoga—or argue on the internet about intermittent fasting (which, by the way, I do recommend).

Ancient Roots of Wellness

Although the word wellness sounds modern—and it certainly is, the idea behind it has very deep roots. One of the oldest systems devoted to human wellbeing is Ayurveda, developed in India more than 3,000 years ago. The word literally means “the science of life,” which, I must admit, is an extraordinarily ambitious definition.

Ayurveda emerged from the philosophical traditions of the Vedas—ancient sacred texts that attempted to understand the workings of the universe… including the small universe each of us inhabits: the human body. Its central idea was both simple and brilliant: health depends on balance between mind, body, and spirit.

When that balance breaks, illness appears. Logical, isn’t it? Balance—the magic word.

To maintain that balance, Ayurvedic traditions proposed practices that sound strikingly contemporary today: healthy food, exercise, meditation, hygiene, herbal medicine, proper rest, and harmonious social living.

Exactly the same things you’ll hear at any modern wellness retreat… except they figured it out more than three thousand years earlier. Around 2,500 years ago, China developed another equally sophisticated system: Traditional Chinese Medicine.

Its philosophy centers on the harmony of vital energy—Qi—which circulates through the body along pathways called meridians. When that energy becomes blocked, illness appears. To restore balance, practitioners use acupuncture, herbal medicine, therapeutic massage, and mind-body practices like Qi Gong.

Meanwhile, in the Western world, around 500 BC, the Greek physician Hippocrates proposed something radical for his time: illness was not a punishment from the gods but the result of natural causes and human decisions—diet, environment, and lifestyle among them. Remember the famous quote: “Let food be thy medicine.” That came from him.

Notice something? Humanity keeps traveling down the same road and arriving at the same conclusions.

The 19th Century: When Wellness Started Organizing Itself

During the nineteenth century something interesting happened. Europe and the United States began experiencing the consequences of industrialization: denser cities, polluted air, long working hours, and a growing sense of disconnection from nature—followed, not surprisingly, by dissatisfaction and rising illness.

The response was a series of cultural and medical movements that aimed to restore health through lifestyle.

The German physician Christian Hahnemann developed homeopathy in the late eighteenth century, proposing that certain natural substances could stimulate the body’s self-healing mechanisms.

Soon after, the Bavarian priest Sebastian Kneipp popularized a therapy based on hydrotherapy, herbal remedies, exercise, and balanced nutrition. His famous Kneipp Cure included walking in cold water—something we would now call cryotherapy… just with far less marketing.

I must admit this one surprised me; I didn’t know about it. Perhaps we should try it from time to time.

Then there was Horace Fletcher, who insisted every bite of food should be chewed at least thirty times before swallowing. He likely drove half the population insane—the other half simply never heard about it. His theory, known as Fletcherism, inspired endless jokes, but it contained a deeply sensible point: mindful eating improves digestion.

Another notable reformer was John Harvey Kellogg, director of the famous Battle Creek Sanitarium, who promoted vegetarian diets, regular exercise, and mental wellbeing.

Meanwhile in Germany and Switzerland a movement called Lebensreform—literally “life reform”—emerged. Its followers advocated vegetarianism, natural medicine, organic agriculture, outdoor exercise, and simple living.

If you think about it, the Lebensreform program looks suspiciously like a contemporary wellness retreat in Tecate, Los Cabos, Baja California, or just about anywhere in the world… except back then no one had social media to document it.

The Formal Birth of wellness concept took shape in the twentieth century, although the word itself appeared in English as early as the seventeenth century. The first known record dates to 1654, in the diary of Sir Archibald Johnston.

However, the modern idea truly emerged in the twentieth century.

In 1948, the World Health Organization proposed a revolutionary definition of health:“A state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease.”

That sentence changed the medical paradigm.

One of the first thinkers to expand on this idea was the American physician Halbert L. Dunn, who introduced the concept of High-Level Wellness in the 1950s. For Dunn, wellness was not a static condition but a dynamic process influenced by environment, personal decisions, and individual awareness.

In the 1970s, John Travis opened one of the first centers in California dedicated specifically to wellness. His idea was simple but revolutionary: don’t wait until you’re sick to take care of your health.

Other advocates such as Robert Rodale, Bill Hettler, and Donald Ardell helped expand the movement in the following decades. By the 1990s, wellness had become a global phenomenon—and, as often happens with good ideas, a very significant business.

The 21st Century: Wellness as a Global Phenomenon

Today, in the twenty-first century, wellbeing has become one of the largest industries in the world—truly a global force. The global wellness market is estimated at around $6.8 trillion annually, growing steadily over the past decade. It includes everything from wellness tourism to functional nutrition, complementary medicine, mental health, biometric technology, and a growing fascination with what we now call biohacking.

Among the fastest-growing sectors are wellness real estate—something I’ll talk about in another chapter since I work in real estate development—traditional and complementary medicine, and mental wellness.

Interestingly, many of today’s trends—adaptogens, medicinal mushrooms, fermented foods, functional nutrition—have very ancient roots in herbal traditions from Asia, Europe, and Latin America.

Modernity, it seems, often rediscovers with great enthusiasm what tradition already knew. And perhaps what still lives quietly in our epigenetics—or, if you prefer a simpler authority, just ask your grandmother what cures a stomachache.

The Simple Conclusion

If we step back and look at the entire story, one conclusion becomes almost unavoidable.

Wellness is not a trend.

It’s not social-media fashion.

It’s not merely a marketing strategy.

It is a deeply and fairly human aspiration.

From the Ayurvedic sages of India to Hippocrates, from nineteenth-century European herbalists to today’s biotechnology laboratories, humanity has been pursuing the same question since the beginning of time: How do we live better inside this body—so extraordinary and so fragile at the same time?

Perhaps that is the real story of wellness. A story of curiosity, experimentation, brilliant intuition—and occasionally some rather strange ideas. Because yes, a few of them have been… unusual.

But walking through the ruins of Pompeii taught me something. Imagining those thermal baths, markets, and wine bars—white wine included—it becomes clear that the search for wellbeing has always been with us.

Sometimes in the form of meditation.

Sometimes in herbal remedies.

And often, in its most beautiful form: a good meal shared with a table full of friends.

Which, if we’re completely honest, remains one of the most effective therapies humanity has ever invented.