The continuing increase in physical and mental health trends

The pandemic has sparked an international knitting revival and a home training boom as many have tried to stay calm and healthy, during the biggest health crisis of our time.

Craft market, LoveCrafts, found that 8.7 million Britons used crafts as the biggest aid for their mental health during the pandemic period.

Here are some other pandemic health trends – but will they stay?

Improved fitness and physical well-being

Covid-19 has been found to expose people with heart disease and diabetes to more complications than fit people. As people tried to lose weight, the health and wellness industry exploded.

According to GlobalData:

• At least half of UK consumers brought home workout products during the pandemic
• 75% plan to continue training at home after the pandemic is over
• Among these consumers, 31% said they did not exercise regularly before and 76% said they would continue to exercise after the pandemic

Additionally, plant-based diets have become an attractive lifestyle choice for many, with 18% of Britons moving in this new dietary direction – perhaps amplified by the origin of Covid-19 in a wet food market.

In addition to diet and exercise, smokers also took the opportunity to quit permanently, after finding that smokers were more likely to be hospitalized with Covid-19 than non-smokers:

• During million people in the UK have quit smoking since the COVID-19 pandemic hit
• 440,000 smokers also tried to quit during this time

This research suggests that consumers go to great lengths to improve their health over the long term.

However, other pandemic trends included:

• An increase of ghost hunting activities – certainly a socially distant company
• In a time when we were so alone, the pandemic may have revealed that we are not, due to a 16% increase in UFO sightings across the United States, by amateur alien hunters

Knit your way to better mental health

In 2020, Olympic gold medalist Tom daley learned to knit, revealing the therapeutic and calming benefits that ten minutes of daily knitting and crochet had on her mental well-being.

“I think I have to thank the craft for the way I was able to compete in the Olympics,” Daley said. “During Covid, at the Olympics, we couldn’t do anything, we couldn’t go out, we couldn’t go and interact with someone else, so we had to find something else to distract ourselves from it and honestly, that ‘ was where my Olympic knitting project was born. I started to learn to knit with kits.

Daley just launched Made with love by Tom Daley, his own knitting kits.

“The fact that I’ve been able to design some of my own kits and share my love of knitting with other people is super exciting. I didn’t want something to be too difficult so they are really beginner to easy.

“My next thing, I will be incorporating knitting and crafts in schools as part of the program. I think it would be an amazing thing for the kids to learn to relax. I think people would really like that. “

Everything in the box can be reused or recycled, even the instructions in the box are printed on a 10x10cm card and can be used to measure the voltage square.