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10 Wellness & Intimate Tech Trends going into 2021

  1. Peloton for the Mind: Connected Mental Health
  2. Cohort-based Group Therapy across every possible user segment
  3. Finding Friends and Romantic Partners becomes Authentic and Serendipitous
  4. Audio Lowering the Barriers to Spontaneous Intimacy
  5. Mindful Productivity in response to the Attention Economy
  6. Rise of Sleep Tech: Physical and Digital
  7. D2C Personalized Psychiatric Medicine
  8. Alternative “medicine” coming into the Mainstream: Psychedelics, Acupuncture, Adaptogens & Aromatherapy
  9. Social Networks: Closed & Trust-driven > Open & Ad-driven
  10. Mental health for polar ends of the age spectrum: children & the elderly

01. Peloton for the Mind: Connected Mental Health

Peloton addressed physical fitness by combining smart stationary bikes with live classes and community features to create an engaging experience.

A similar approach will be applied to mental wellness.

As application of EEG brain activity sensors & HRV to mental health becomes more rampant, consumer adoption will increase.

Because mental improvement is hard to see, devices that close this loop through bio-feedback will make mental wellness as measurable as physical fitness.

Players in the space

02. Cohort-based Group Therapy across every possible user segment

For many, individual 1-1 therapy is financially inaccessible. Group therapy lowers the cost of access, while combining the therapeutic benefits of authentically connecting to a community.

Start-ups will play both a role in the creating the underlying tech stack for these online gatherings (payments, scheduling, etc.), and enabling the discovery and pairing of patient to other patients and practitioners.

Furthermore, we’ll begin to see group-based cohorts aimed at every demographic, stage in life, mental health illness, occupation, etc.

Players in the space

03. Finding Friends and Romantic Partners becomes Authentic and Serendipitous

Social media has morphed our digital presence into manicured status boxes and pixel-perfect filtered squares.

We’re now more ready than ever to connect with others authentically (with all our idiosyncrasies) and serendipitously (outside our immediate social graph).

Finding friends

Finding romantic partners

04. Audio Lowering the Barriers to Spontaneous Intimacy

Clubhouse is similar to Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok
via Stratechery

Some of the most groundbreaking consumer products in the past decade won through successfully lowering the barrier to creation, so that anyone could be a photographer (Instagram), Videographer (TikTok), and Writer (Substack).

Through the recent rise of podcasts and Clubhouse, the voice has now lowered the barriers for connection and intimacy.

The immediacy of someone’s voice may be far more meaningful than words on a screen. Instantaneous audio will become the love language of the digital realm.

Players in the space

05. Mindful Productivity in response to the Attention Economy

an illustration showing a person, looking up, surrounded by a crowd of people all looking down at their phones
via humane

With the neutral POV of many tech platforms, the burden to prune ones digital consumption diet and limit its pervasiveness falls upon the consumer.

As a result, more tools will emerge to help us reclaim our time and give us psychological freedom. These include digital wellness trackers, mindfulness apps, and programmable attention tools.

Players in the space

06. Rise of Sleep Tech: Physical and Digital

Meditation is a vitamin, sleep is a pain-killer.

Meditation is aspirational. Sleep is foundational.

From hustle culture to the rise of holistic wellness, America is now woke (literally, heh) to the importance of sleep.

Sleep underlies overall wellbeing, yet as the saying goes.. you can’t improve what you can’t track. Tech is now rushing in to bolster our sleep practice with data, self-awareness, and tools.

Players in the space

07. D2C Personalized Psychiatric Medicine

1 in 6 Americans take a psychiatric drug.

Think going to therapy is hard? Vetting psychiatrists (more stigmatized than therapy), staying on top of filling prescriptions, and adjusting medication amounts, is even harder.

Unlike other types of medication, psychiatric medication dosage, symptoms and efficacy, vary person to person.

Often times, patients are started on either the wrong type of medication or too high of a dosage. They subsequently discontinue the medication (and their recovery) due to easily-preventable side effects.

A new wave of tech companies will emerge to ease the painpoints throughout the medication titration and management process.

Players in the space

08. Alternative “medicine” coming into the Mainstream: Psychedelics, Acupuncture, Adaptogens & Aromatherapy

pink and blue abstract painting

The efficacy of psychedelics towards mental health disorders have recently been brought more prominently into the public eye through books by Michael Pollan, Ayelet Waldman, and Tao Lin. FDA studies have shown their efficacy on depression and PTSD in controlled environments. More recently, Oregon legalized psilocybin in supervised and licensed therapy sessions.

Similar to cannabis, a new wave of start-ups will support its distribution and education. This also applies to traditional Chinese medicine, acupuncture, traditional Indian medicine (Ayurveda), adaptogens and aromatherapy.

Players in the space

09. Social Networks: Closed & Trust-driven > Open & Ad-driven

As the 2000’s have demonstrated, our digital social networks have a major impact on our mental health.

The major change between the social networks of the 90s and the social networks of today is capitalism. In the early social media days, you made money by creating a place where people felt like home.

Today social media is driven by ads and feels like an obligation.

The next decade of social media will move from:

Players in the space

10. Mental health for polar ends of the age spectrum: children & the elderly

Verticalized wellness offerings for both children and the elderly will become crucial - especially as children become more vulnerable to mental health disorders and the elderly become increasingly isolated.

Players in the space

In summary:

Overall, I’m hopeful for what’s to come and looking forward to seeing what you guys build.

Let’s put the intimate back into the internet and continue to increase the welcome in wellness.

Know any cool companies that should be on this list? email me@patriciamou.com.

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