The Art of Healthy Ageing

Interview with Prof. Gerard Bodeker, Founding Chair,
Mental Wellness Initiative of the Global Wellness Institute

A Harvard-trained public health academic, Gerry Bodeker researches and advises on integrative medicine and wellness. He has taught in medical sciences at Oxford University for two decades, is adjunct professor of epidemiology at Columbia University, and chairs the Ayurveda Advisory Group at Western Sydney University, where he is an Adjunct Professor in health science. He works with the private sector, governments and the United Nations, advising on culturally-themed wellness strategies. He has long specialised in Asian traditions of medicine and healthy lifestyles, including the study of Chinese Medicine and Ayurveda. Prof. Bodeker has published widely, including the following books: The World Health Organization Global Atlas on Traditional, Complementary and Alternative Medicine, Understanding the Global Spa Industry, and Mental Wellness: Pathways, Evidence and Horizons. He has chapters on Mental Wellness, Ageing, Wellness Policy, and Asian Health Traditions in a book published by the Asian Development Bank on Wellness for a Healthy Asia; and he has co-edited and co-authored a book with Taylor & Francis publishers in the US on Healthy Ageing in Asia. He has been an advisor to National Geographic and featured in the BBC’s “In Pursuit of Wellness”. He served as Senior Consultant to CNN’s series “Chasing Life”.

SpaChina interviewed Professor Gerry, who shared his insights on mental health approaches in the context of Asia and China, as well as the global landscape.

Professor Bodeker, you’ve bridged Eastern and Western wellness paradigms. Where do you see the most promising intersections between TCM, Ayurveda, and mental health?

Asia’s two major systems of traditional health knowledge — Chinese Medicine and India’s Ayurveda — are grounded in principles of living healthy and well throughout the human life span. In the classical texts, lifestyle is given primary emphasis over medicines.

Central to these Asian traditions of wellness is an understanding that people have different metabolic styles, and that understanding these is the basis for developing personalized preventive health and wellness routines. Also, of primary importance in Asian wellness theories and practices is an individualized and balanced approach to nutrition based on body type and cultural food traditions.

Integrative exercise is given priority also along with stress-reducing and integrative breathing and meditative practice. Regular connection with nature is seen as a balancing influence on overall wellbeing.

A significant amount of scientific evidence now exists in support of Asian wellness traditions in reducing the risk of noncommunicable diseases (NCDs), reducing stress and mental health issues, and enhancing quality of life and longevity. There is now an opportunity for Asia to integrate its own cultural traditions into national and regional guidelines for risk reduction for NCDs and overall health promotion and mental wellness, according to Asia’s own cultural heritage. In turn, this has cost-reduction implications for reducing the burden of disease and the associated costs for national health systems, creating economic opportunities for wellness tourism, and new possibilities for entrepreneurship.

Sleep and meditation are different forms of experiencing the rest that is essential for the bodies to renew itself on a daily basis. Evidence shows that enhanced health, cardiovascular functioning, mental wellbeing, and cognitive performance are associated with meditation.

It turns out that the arts, e.g., music, the visual arts, writing, as well as dance, all have documented benefits on mental health and wellbeing. Laughter or just the experience of laughing not at or about anything, but laughing WITH others, creates health and happiness that are measurable in physiological terms.

Clearly, there are many pathways to wellness that are beneficial across a long lifespan and all have an ancient home in Asia’s wellness traditions.

Asia’s Dietary Traditions. Among these are reishi mushrooms and goji in East Asia, and turmeric and bitter gourd in South Asia and Southeast Asia. Many food preparation methods utilize microorganisms, now understood as critical to healthy digestion and physical function.

A growing body of evidence indicates that, in parallel with losing touch with ancestral food traditions, an increase in chronic disease comes. Asian diets incorporate medicinal ingredients into the food. This is well established in Japanese, Chinese, and Indian cuisine, e.g., reishi mushrooms in Japanese cuisine, goji berries in Chinese food, and potent medicinal species in Indian menus, such as turmeric, fenugreek and bitter gourd.

The 7th century C.E. physician and medical scholar, Sun Si Miao, favored food as the first line of intervention in preventing and treating disease. Predating the WHO’s NCD guidelines by about a millennium and a half, Sun Si Miao prioritized food hygiene, advised against rich or greasy food, promoted thorough cooking and avoiding excessive drinking, and recommended taking a walk after a meal.

Research has shown that the lower amount of calories in plant-rich and the high intake of plant-based nutrients and antioxidants in such traditional diets all contribute to preventing the development of such NCDs as obesity, diabetes, heart disease, cancer, and rheumatism as well as promoting mental wellbeing.

India’s Ayurvedic medicine theory of personalized nutritional, lifestyle, and medicinal guidelines is consistent with an emerging 21st century prioritization of personalized medicine and is strengthened by a growing body of research on the related genomics. For example, turmeric, which is widely used throughout South Asia and Southeast Asia, contributes to a dietary approach of preventing and managing type 2 diabetes as well as having well-documented anti-cancer, cardioprotective, and anti-Alzheimer’s properties.

Meditation. Meditation is central to Asia’s traditions of mental and spiritual wellbeing. Meditation is like exercise for the brain and has been shown to assist in mental health maintenance, improve memory, empathy, and sense of self. Brain changes associated with the practice of meditation include enhanced neural plasticity and increased grey and white matter development in the brains of meditators.

In research conducted at the Massachusetts General Hospital, magnetic resonance images were taken of the brain structure of 16 study participants 2 weeks before and after they took part in an 8-week mindfulness meditation program. The research team found increased grey-matter density in the hippocampus, known to be important for learning and memory, and in structures associated with self-awareness, compassion, and introspection. Participants’ reports of reduced stress were correlated with decreased grey matter density in the amygdala, which is known to play an important role in anxiety and stress.

Studies on the Transcendental Meditation (TM) technique have found reductions in anxiety, improvement in the mental health of caregivers and, in a study on survivors of the Japanese earthquake-tsunami of 2011, improvements in both mental and physical symptoms following instruction in this meditation technique. In a new study published in March 2025, researchers compared meditators with up to 40 years of experience against non-meditators. The analysis revealed meaningful differences in gene expression, brain activity, and the levels of stress hormones. The experts found that TM practitioners exhibit lower expression of specific genes, such as SOCS3, that are tied to inflammation and stress. Cognitive decline with age is a well-known phenomenon. However, EEG scans in the study suggest that older TM practitioners retain brain function that closely resembles that of younger adults.

With benefits ranging from enhanced mental wellbeing through to reduction of deeply traumatic stress, from changes in brain structure and functioning through to changes in gene expression and telomere length, and reduced age-related decline, meditation stands as a primary pathway for lifelong enhancement of physical and mental wellness.

Exercise and Movement. There is a need for research on the many Asian exercise modalities. 

Tai Chi. A meta-analysis of studies on the effects of tai chi in preventing falling in the elderly found that tai chi exercise is effective for preventing falls in older adults. The preventive effect seems to increase with the frequency of tai chi practice. In other research, veterans with post-traumatic stress symptoms took part in a four-session introduction to tai chi in Boston. In addition to reporting a high degree of satisfaction with the program, participants reported feeling very engaged during the sessions, and found tai chi to be helpful for managing distressing symptoms such as  intrusive thoughts, concentration difficulties, and physiological arousal.

Yoga. According to scientific research, yoga may reduce stress, relieve anxiety, help manage depression, decrease lower back pain, improve quality of life in those with chronic conditions or acute illnesses, stimulate brain function, and help prevent heart disease. An estimated US$80 billion is spent on yoga worldwide, illustrating how an Asian exercise program can globalize and become a substantial source of revenue.

Meditation, massage, social support, music, dance, and laughter are all important pathways to mental wellbeing, and Asian cultural dimensions of these have deep grounding in tradition and now also in science. With the mounting body of evidence in support of the health value of Asia’s wellness traditions, it is timely for governments, civil society, families, and community leaders to bring these heritage traditions to the fore. Asia’s deep traditions of wellness can enhance the wellbeing of individuals and societies and create new commercial opportunities across the board, both domestically and internationally.

China now prioritizes “spiritual wellness” with economic growth. Is this enough, or do mental health services need deeper reform?

Health systems globally are in need of reform, moving from the pharmaceutical and medical treatment of mental health conditions to a greater emphasis on lifestyle, personal support, exercise and movement, meditation and nutrition. Within this, there is an important place for spirituality. 

There are many ways of defining spirituality. A particularly insightful view of spirituality has been framed by Christina Pulchaski, Director of the George Washington Institute of Spirituality and Health: “Spirituality is the aspect of humanity that refers to the way individuals seek and express meaning and purpose and the way they experience their connectedness to the moment, to self, to others, to nature, and to the significant or sacred.”

This may involve meditation, contemplation, prayer, and other forms of spiritual practices.

Researchers from Baylor University in the U.S. have found that people who pray to a loving and protective God are less likely to experience anxiety-related disorders — worry, fear, self-consciousness, social anxiety and obsessive-compulsive behaviour — compared to people who pray but don’t really expect to receive any comfort or protection from God.  Prayer has also been found to be inversely associated with symptoms of anxiety-related disorders among individuals with a secure attachment to God but positively associated with these outcomes among those who have a more insecure attachment to God.

Prayer appears to be associated with better mental health if it supports a positive relationship with a perceived divine other (God) through praise or belief that one’s prayers are answered.

On the other hand, prayer tends to be associated with worse mental health if it arises out of a troubled relationship with God, or if prayer is used as a resource of coping during periods of high stress.

Compared to those who never attend religious service, studies have found that regular attenders have a 29% reduced risk of depression, 33% reduced risk of death, 50% reduced risk of divorce, and 84% reduced risk of suicide.

So, clearly, there is benefit to a spiritual component for mental wellness policies.

Philosophers like Yuval Noah Harari argue that humanity’s next crisis is “meaninglessness.” Where do you think the greatest “deficits and crises” facing humanity currently lie?

Philosophers naturally frame their world view around philosophical themes such as whether or not people have a sense of life having meaning. This of course does have direct bearing on mental health, and it is true that mental wellbeing is declining globally among young people.

However, as a public health researcher, I would place many other global public health crises ahead of life being meaningless. I would highlight microplastics in the human body and brain as one of humanity’s major current and critical global crises – not even its next one. Microplastics have been found in the land, sea and air, across the food chain and throughout the human body. According to the World Economic Forum 2025, some experts believe we are in the midst of a plastic health crisis. I agree with this assessment.

Microplastics are pieces of plastic debris under five millimetres in length. Some – such as microbeads, typically found in cosmetics and toiletry products – are designed to be small, while other plastic gradually breaks down to this size.

Microplastics have now been detected throughout the human body – including the blood, lungs, liver, reproductive system, and even lower limb joints. Scientists have found evidence of microplastics in our brains. The brains of deceased Alzheimer’s patients have been found to have up to ten times the level of microplastics than the brains of people who did not die with Alzheimer’s disease.

Studies point to the possibility that they can increase the likelihood of high blood pressure, heart attack, stroke or death. Other research links microplastics with inflammation and noncommunicable diseases. In a recent study on mice, imaging showed microplastics moving through their brains and blocking blood vessels.

This is happening now, in real time and will impact the future of our species. And the global wellness community seems quite unaware of the scale of the problem and of what it can offer to help.

The Global Wellness Institute’s Mental Wellness Initiative, for which I serve as Founding Chair, along with my Co-Chair, Alina Hernandez, has identified microplastics as the theme of an important mental wellness trend for 2025.

In terms of what can be done, awareness of the crisis has to come first. Education about how to reduce microplastic intake comes next. Pathways for removing microplastics, such as sweating from steam treatments and saunas, probiotics recently shown to remove microplastics from the gut, new attempts to circulate blood through equipment which “cleanses” microplastics from the blood are all among early attempts to address the crisis.

Oceans, the air, the food chain, drinking water, are all affected by microplastics which are in turn entering the human body and impacting human health and especially the human brain. This is a huge crisis for humanity and the generations. It is also a huge opportunity for the wellness sector to rise to the occasion and to study the evidence on what can help in reducing microplastics in the body and to offer new pathways for reducing the microplastic load in our bodies and especially in our brains.

If tasked with designing a UN-backed global mental wellness initiative, what would be your foundational principles?

1. SELF-CARE. There has been a paradigm shift in the mental health sphere from solely focusing on the brain to a more “whole person” perspective. The importance of self-care is central in the new paradigm, along with holistic health care. This new paradigm is one of Integrative Mental Health. It focuses on a whole person approach to mental health and mental health disorders, addressing mind, body and spirit. It is multifaceted but the key features include exercise, healthful nutrition, mindfulness practices such as meditation, and social connection.

2. A LIFESPAN APPROACH. The Mental Wellness strategy is to focus on what everyone can do in a self-managed and self-empowering way to enhance their own mental wellbeing using evidence-based pathways that work for them. This has to be relevant to all age groups across the lifespan. A lifespan approach to mental wellness considers the needs of infants, children, teenagers, those of college age, working adults, women, men, seniors – both healthy and infirm.

Life span approaches to wellbeing place preeminent importance on a cluster of factors that contribute to quality of life as being central in ensuring a life journey towards fulfilled and healthy ageing. These include regular exercise; good nutrition; meaningful social relationships; ability to contribute to society; connection with nature through gardening, nature walks, and a positive mindset.

Cornerstones of this approach include:

(i) Education about what can be done to live a healthy life at this point in the lifespan. Such education can be person to person, social-media-based, and even AI mediated. This knowledge sharing should be grounded in scientific evidence about which modalities work best to promote mental wellbeing.

(ii) Self-care, because there will never be enough therapists and healthcare professionals to meet the needs of the population. Self-care, based on building resilience and self-motivation, is necessary for mental wellbeing and thriving to be stabilized within a person and across society.

3. MOVEMENT & EXERCISE

There is a vast body of literature highlighting the importance of regular exercise for creating and maintaining mental wellbeing.  Bursts of high intensity exercise are particularly beneficial in reducing the effects of ageing and enhancing brain functioning.

The Move Your Mental Health report produced by the John W Brick Foundation in the US reports that:

• Existing scientific research overwhelmingly indicates that exercise and physical activity benefit mental health.
• Overall, three to five 30-45-minute moderate to vigorous exercise sessions per week appear to deliver optimal mental health benefits
• High-frequency exercise (3-5 times per week) is better for reducing depressive symptoms than low-frequency exercise
• Mindfulness-based activities like yoga and tai chi, though they can be lower intensity forms of movement, deliver more mental health benefits than walking.
• Team sports, cycling, and aerobic or gym exercise are the top three forms of exercise associated with over 20% fewer “poor mental health” days per month.

4.     MEDITATION, MINDFULNESS & REST

A meta-analysis in the Journal of the American Medical Association identified almost 19,000 studies on different forms of meditation. Four decades of studies highlight the effects of meditation in enhancing immunity, reducing depression and anxiety, improving academic performance, reducing age-related cognitive decline, increasing happiness and Quality of Life, and managing and reducing trauma.

5.     NUTRITIONAL PATHWAYS TO MENTAL WELLBEING.

Research suggests that diet quality is associated with mental illness, and that dietary interventions may be effective in treating or preventing certain mental health conditions. Diet can influence biological pathways involved in mental illness, such as inflammation, oxidative stress, gut microbiota, and neurogenesis.

Data from meta-analyses on mental, nutritional and physical approaches to creating and maintaining well-being  show outcomes that are often equal or superior to conventional drug or psychotherapeutic interventions.

Clinical studies have found omega-3 fatty acids to be beneficial in the treatment of bipolar depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, and major depression, as well as the prevention of psychosis. And higher levels of B family vitamins, as well as vitamins C, D, and E, have all been found to be associated with higher scores on cognitive tests.

The same positive relationship was found for omega-3 fatty acids, which have been linked previously to better brain health. On the other hand, people with higher levels of trans fats, which are found in a variety of junk foods, performed more poorly in thinking and memory tests. Their magnetic resonance imaging scans also revealed more brain shrinkage than people who had lower trans fats levels. Research has found that, overall, nutrition accounted for 37% of the variation in brain volume.

 6. ENVIRONMENT

Clearly, a wellness agenda must address the growing problem of air pollution as Asia urbanizes. The WHO has noted: “As the world gets hotter and more crowded, our engines continue to pump out dirty emissions, and half the world has no access to clean fuels or technologies (e.g. stoves, lamps), the very air we breathe is growing dangerously polluted: nine out of ten people now breathe polluted air, which kills 7 million people every year.”

A systematic review of global data has found that people living with air pollution have higher rates of depression and suicide. Research from China, which contains 16 of the cities listed in the United Nations’ top 20 most polluted cities in the world, has found that bad air quality contributes to poor mental health and unhappiness. The researchers looked at the impact of air pollution on several key dimensions, including mental health status, depressive symptoms, moment-to-moment happiness, and evaluative happiness (i.e., overall life satisfaction). What they found was that air pollution reduces all forms of happiness and increases the rate of depressive symptoms over time.

Conversely, people tend to live longer when they have access to green space. Neighbourhood greenness is strongly associated with better mental and physical health. People living in highly green areas are much more likely to have better physical and mental health than those living near open areas that are not highly green. Nature near home is particularly important for children, increasing their ability to cope with stressful life events, directed attention, and cognitive function. New research has reported that gentle woodland sounds, such as birdsong and the breeze rustling leaves in the trees, are more relaxing than meditation recordings.

A study from the University of Essex in the U.K. found that a walk in the country reduces depression in 71% of participants. The researchers found that as little as five minutes in a natural setting, whether walking in a park or gardening in the backyard, improved mood, self-esteem, and motivation.

In a 2010 Japanese study of shinrin-yoku (defined as “taking in the forest atmosphere, or forest bathing”), researchers found that elements of the environment, such as the odour of wood, the sound of running stream water, and the scenery of the forest can provide relaxation and reduce stress. Those taking part in the study experienced lower levels of cortisol, a lower pulse rate, and lower blood pressure. Personal benefits include increases in self-esteem, confidence and resilience, and a general sense of  “feeling better”. Social benefits include a “sense of companionship” and a greater feeling of autonomy.

Reducing pollution, building green cities, and creating access to nature for the world’s burgeoning population will need to be a foundational component of mental wellness planning and development throughout the 21st century. What is clear from the perspective of mental wellness is that living with access to green space and nature enhances our mental wellbeing and that exposure to air pollution worsens it.