Greek tans, viral myths & a rooftop ICU that made us cry 🌿

Hi besties,

Schools are officially out and summer 2026 has begun. 🌞 Whatever your plans look like - whether you’re heading off on adventures or taking some much needed time for yourself - we hope you’ve got some good things ahead.

As for us - Harriet has just wrapped up a magical week at Pelligoni (and high fived Katie at Athens airport as they switched over!) Inspired by all things Greek summer, we’ve rounded up our favourite wellness spots in Greece HERE for anyone heading that way or planning ahead for next summer already.

For those of you hanging around in Dubai a little longer, we’re a bit lighter on events this week but there’s still some great stuff in the Local Lowdown - scroll down and have a look🤍.

We’ve got another great week of things happening in the world of wellness - some genuinely brilliant stories this week. Including an important reminder that wellness misinformation spreads just as fast as the good stuff - if something goes viral, fact check it before you share it. More on that inside, plus 86-year-olds outwalking every published study, clean activewear finally backing up its claims and one of the most quietly beautiful stories we’ve featured in a while - about a rooftop ICU garden in London and what happens when you give critically ill patients back the sky. Have your tissues ready 🌿.

With love (and a Greek tan that’s already fading faster than we’d like),

📍The Burn Room, Nad Al Sheba

The Burn Room has only just opened its doors in Dubai, but it's already creating a name for itself. Originally launched in Abu Dhabi in November 2025 by two Emirati female founders, the concept was born from a desire to create a fitness studio that feels welcoming rather than intimidating, where movement becomes something you genuinely look forward to.

We visited the new Dubai studio in Avenue Mall, Nad Al Sheba, to experience what makes it different.

The first thing that stood out was the women-only concept. It creates a really comfortable, supportive atmosphere, and from the moment we arrived, the team made us feel genuinely welcome.

We tried the Hot Pilates class, held under full-body red light therapy – The Burn Room's signature offering. Red light therapy has become increasingly popular for its potential recovery benefits, helping to support circulation, reduce inflammation and promote overall wellbeing, making it a nice addition to an already sweaty session.

The class itself felt accessible and beginner-friendly, but we still left feeling like we'd had a great workout. If you're looking for something challenging without feeling overwhelming, it strikes a nice balance.

The studio itself is intimate, with two workout spaces offering Lagree, Hot Pilates with Red Light Therapy, and Deep Stretch & Fascia Release. There isn't a café or changing room as it's located within Avenue Mall, but parking was easy and everything else has been thoughtfully considered. Mats are prepared before class with towels ready to go, grip socks are mandatory, and one thing we particularly loved was the strict no-recording policy. In a world where so many fitness classes end up on social media, it was refreshing to move without worrying about being filmed.

The Wellness Drop Verdict: A welcoming, women-only boutique studio with a strong sense of community and a unique red light therapy concept. If you're looking for a low-impact, high-intensity workout in a space that feels supportive rather than intimidating, this is one to add to your list.

Not the busiest week on the wellness calendar, but definitely one worth bookmarking. We've rounded up a handful of experiences we'd genuinely book ourselves - from floating meditation and breathwork to recovery mornings and a few very good community events.

🤍 In Her Element
Tuesday 7th July, 7:00 PM - 8:00 PM
HWH Studio, Delano
A softer way to spend your Tuesday evening. Expect meditation, sound healing and manifestation in a women-only space designed to help you switch off for an hour. Plus a little ALO gifting to take home afterwards.
To book, click here

💧 Immersive Float & Flow
Thursday 9th July, 8:00 PM - 9:00 PM
The Garden Pool, One&Only One Za’abeel
Floating on water with guided meditation in your headphones? A pretty lovely way to end the day. One of those experiences that feels completely different to anything else on Dubai's wellness calendar.
To book, click here

✨ Glow Days
Friday 10th July and Saturday 11th July
Ikigai Studio
A workout with a few extra perks. Book any class during Glow Days and you'll also find complimentary Medicube facials, Gold Apple goodies and plenty of feel-good community energy. A good excuse to finally try Ikigai if it's been on your list.
Book your classes here

🌿 The Art of Recovery
Sunday 12th July
Ikigai Studio
A reminder that recovery deserves a place in your routine too. Expect gentle movement, guided journaling and mindful moments to help you head into the new week feeling refreshed rather than rushed.
Book your classes here

🫁 9D Breathwork Meditation
Tuesday 14th July, 8:00 PM
TODA, Souk Madinat Jumeirah
If you've been curious about breathwork, this is a brilliant place to start. Guided breathwork meets immersive 360° visuals and neuro-sound technology for an experience that's equal parts fascinating and deeply relaxing.
To book, click here

🧘 Sensory Reset
Friday 17th July 7:00 PM - 9:00 PM
Beyond Dome, Festival City Mall
If you’re craving a full-body reset, this immersive evening brings together mindful movement, live sound healing and 360° dome visuals to help you slow down and switch off. Created with Almost Fit Club, expect a “yoga-not-yoga” style session designed to gently energise the body while calming the nervous system. A limited-capacity experience with curated gifting and space to reconnect.
To book, click here

 INDUSTRY TRENDS AND NEWS

🛳️ Harper’s Bazaar Just Set Sail on the World’s First Wellness Cruise
Because apparently land-based wellness wasn’t enough. Harper’s Bazaar has just launched its first ever Wellness at Sea cruise, in partnership with Cunard’s Queen Anne, sailing from Southampton this weekend to Norway’s fjords. A week of expert-led wellness programming - movement, mindfulness, nutrition, beauty - with Olympic silver medallist Katarina Johnson-Thompson on board for good measure. Tickets started at $2,000, sold out completely, and we are not even slightly surprised.
Our Take: We’ve covered wellness retreats, wellness superyachts, wellness offices and wellness beauty stores. Apparently the next frontier is the open sea and we’re here for it. Someone save us a cabin 🛳️.
Read More

🌿 The Herbal Brand Swapping Wine for Wellness Just Raised $16M
Apothékary - the Japanese-inspired plant medicine brand founded by a former Goldman Sachs trader who burned out on Wall Street and returned to her roots - just raised $16M in fresh funding, backed by Shiseido among others. Drawing on traditions from Japanese Kampo, TCM and Ayurveda, the brand makes herbal tinctures designed to replace less helpful habits - think swapping your nightly glass of wine for an adaptogen drop instead. Their metabolic booster Blue Burn sells one unit every 90 seconds. They’re now in Ulta Beauty, Whole Foods and The Vitamin Shoppe, targeting $40M in sales this year.
Our Take: The founder story alone is worth knowing - Goldman Sachs to plant medicine is quite the pivot. But more than that, this feels like a signal that ancient herbal traditions, backed by modern science and proper funding, are officially mainstream.
Read More

🏃‍♀️ These 86-Year-Olds Just Put Every Walking Study to Shame
Moira Club - a concierge wellness membership for older adults living at home - just released results from a five-week walking challenge that stopped us in our tracks. Eleven members, averaging 86 years old (oldest: 98), increased their daily steps by 27%, outperforming every comparable study in published literature - including those on adults 15-20 years younger. The nearest assisted-living study managed 6.5%. App-only interventions? As low as 3.7%. So what made the difference? Each member wore a wearable device, but crucially they also received consistent, personalised human coaching from Moira’s Vitality Team - gamified around a virtual ascent of Colorado’s mountains to keep it fun and motivating. The results suggest it’s the human connection, not the device, that drives real behaviour change in later life. That extra 601 daily steps per member projects to roughly a 17% lower cardiac risk each, per American Heart Association data.
Our Take: The most powerful wellness tool isn’t always the device. It’s the human walking alongside you. Decline isn’t inevitable - and this data proves it.
Read More

☀️ The Viral Sunscreen Post - A Gentle Reminder to Check Your Sources
You’ve probably seen it circulating this week - a claim that sunscreen dramatically increases skin cancer risk, referencing the “largest sunscreen-skin cancer study ever conducted.” The study is real. The conclusions being drawn from it? A significant leap. The research, published in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, was actually looking at gene-environment interactions in skin cancer. The correlation between sunscreen use and skin cancer in the data most likely reflects a classic confounding variable - people who use more sunscreen tend to be the ones spending more time in the sun. That’s very different from sunscreen causing cancer. As with so much wellness research, the headline and the actual finding are two very different things.
Punchline: When a dramatic health claim goes viral, always ask where it came from and whether anyone sharing it has actually read the study. As with anything - do your own research, think critically, and make your own informed decisions. That’s always the move
Read More

🍄 Wearables Are Now Part of Psychedelic Research - and It’s Fascinating
Oura has joined a research project studying veterans undergoing psychedelic therapies, combining its biometric data - sleep, HRV, temperature, recovery - with EEGs and clinical outcomes to build a longitudinal picture of mental health. Meanwhile WHOOP is already letting members track ketamine, psilocybin and LSD experiences, and platforms like Meru Health are blending digital psychiatry with biomarker tracking.
Worth noting: Psychedelics aren’t new to serious research - the evidence base around psilocybin and MDMA for PTSD in particular has been building for years and is genuinely compelling. What’s new is the infrastructure finally catching up.
Our Take: The fact that this is being funded by the US government’s advanced research agency - the same body that brought us the internet and GPS - tells you how seriously this is being taken at the highest levels. One of the most interesting spaces in mental health right now, and we suspect in a few years the conversation around psychedelic-assisted therapy will look very different to how it does today.
Read more

🌿 Fresh Air Is Medicine - and This Story Proves It
King’s College Hospital in London just opened the UK’s first rooftop intensive care ward - and it’s as beautiful as it sounds. Critically ill patients can now be cared for outdoors, surrounded by honeysuckle, jasmine and lavender close enough to touch and smell from their beds, with full power and oxygen support built in. One patient, wheeled outside for the first time in months, simply said: “I forgot what it feels like to be outside.” Doctors will track whether time outdoors speeds up recovery, with hopes of rolling the model out across the NHS. Hospital gardens might sound like a luxury. But the evidence is clear - access to nature supports mental wellbeing, reduces stress and improves recovery for patients and healthcare workers alike.
Our thoughts: Nature as medicine isn't a new idea - but seeing it applied to some of the most critically ill patients, in the middle of a London hospital, feels like something really rather important.
Read More

🔮 TREND TO WATCH

💚 Clean Activewear Is Finally Putting Its Money Where Its Mouth Is
We’ve talked about what’s in our activewear for a while - the synthetic fabrics, PFAS coatings, chemicals sitting against our skin for hours every day. This week, two launches signal something is actually changing. TALA just launched SoftSet, their first naturally derived collection - PFAS-free, Oeko-Tex Class 1 certified and honestly the most chic clean activewear we’ve seen in this category yet. And HyperNatural’s new Wellness Tee is made from organic cotton, jade stone minerals and chitin from crab shells - cooling, naturally antibacterial, zero plastic or PFAS in sight. Both brands are asking the same question the wellness world has been quietly sitting with for years: why do we read ingredient labels on everything we consume - but never on our clothes?
Our Take: Your skin is your largest organ. It’s time the activewear industry treated it that way. This conversation has been coming - it’s good to see brands finally backing it up with product. TALA SoftSet is where we’d start.
Read More

🔬 RESEARCH SPOTLIGHT

🥦 The Longevity Study That Made Us Want to Eat More Parsley
A new study has identified several dietary antioxidants associated with a lower risk of accelerated biological aging - and the sources are refreshingly whole-food and accessible. The standout nutrients include apigenin (found in parsley, chamomile and artichokes), daidzein (found in natto), magnesium, zinc (oysters and red meat) and vitamin E (nuts, seeds and fish). Not a supplement stack in sight - just real food, eaten consistently over time.
Bottom Line: We love this one. No biohacking, no expensive protocols - just a quiet reminder that what’s on your plate every day is doing more for your longevity than almost anything else. Eat the parsley. Drink the chamomile. (The oysters are all yours though!)
Read the study