In recent years, talk about wellness is no longer limited to medicine or a healthy lifestyle, but has moved strongly into the field of economics and the market. Wellness today is no longer just a personal matter related to the body and soul, but has turned into a complete industry with growth indicators, market shares, and precise marketing strategies.In this context, it becomes necessary to analyze the relationship between the rising interest in wellness on the one hand, and the transformation of this interest into a huge market on the other hand, especially when this transformation intersects with the manufacture of health anxiety and its sale as a motive for consumption. This paper sets out to analyze "wellbeing as economy," focusing on how companies manufacture a growing health anxiety and then offer its solutions in the form of paid products, experiences, and services.
It is important to distinguish at the outset between legitimate health anxiety and commercialized anxiety. Not all health anxiety is an illusion, as there are real risks and disorders that deserve monitoring and treatment. However, the market often operates on the logic of "stretching", that is, expanding the boundaries between what is normal and what is pathological, so that a small possibility or transient symptom becomes a permanent surveillance project.This logic has been discussed by researchers since the turn of the millennium under the concept of "disease commercialization," which means expanding the definition of disease to create larger markets for those selling solutions. What is new today is that this dynamic is no longer confined to the pharmaceutical industry, but has moved aggressively into the wellness industry.Common symptoms such as fatigue, lack of concentration, sleep disturbance, bloating, or mood swings are repackaged in marketing campaigns as early signs of a hidden issue, such as chronic inflammation, toxin buildup, an unspecified hormonal imbalance, or "sensory overload."A quick and ready-made solution is then proposed: a supplement, a detox program, a strict regimen, or a "scientifically designed" experiment. The result is that wellness is transformed from a long process based on basic habits such as sleep, movement, balanced nutrition, and psychological support, to a quick fix store that can be bought and repeated.
In the last decade, wellness is no longer just a personal health goal, but an entire economy with supply chains, marketing platforms, data, and growth indicators similar to any large consumer sector. The Global Wellness Institute estimates that the wellness economy reached about $6.8 trillion in 2024, with a projection to reach $9.8 trillion by 2029, with an annual growth rate of about 7.6%.This expansion is explained not only by people's increased awareness of health, but also by the emergence of a powerful business logic: turning ordinary daily anxiety into manageable "health anxiety" through products and services, and then selling the "solution" in the form of supplements, subscriptions, scales, reset programs, travel experiences, and treatments.
The numbers show why this model appeals to companies. The dietary supplement market alone is approaching two hundred billion dollars annually globally, estimated to be worth 192.65 billion dollars in 2024, with projections to reach 209.52 billion dollars in 2025.This market is well-suited to the anxiety economy for two main reasons. First, the supplement can be marketed as a preventative rather than curative tool, and prevention by its very nature feeds on fear of the future: "Take this today so you don't pay for it tomorrow."Second, in many countries, supplements are subject to less stringent regulatory frameworks than drugs. In the United States, for example, the Food and Drug Administration makes it clear that supplements are subject to a different framework than drugs, and a 1994 law regulates them as a separate category, opening up more room for marketing claims as long as they do not turn into a direct therapeutic claim.In this regulatory gap, gray language such as "supports," "enhances," "promotes," "helps," and "improves" flourishes, language that sows anxiety and then offers reassurance without strict adherence to a clear medical measurement.
But supplements are only one layer of this economy. The most modern and influential layer is what is known as "self-monitoring," turning the body into a set of daily numbers, then turning anxiety into a habit of constant monitoring. The wearable technology market is growing driven by one simple promise: "You will not leave your health to intuition."According to IDC data, about 136.5 million wearable devices were shipped globally in the second quarter of 2025, an annualized growth of 9.6%. In another estimate, the wearable technology market was valued at $84.2 billion in 2024, with strong growth projections through 2030.Here, the company is not just selling a device, but a new relationship with the body, where every number outside the "ideal range" becomes a source of stress, and every little fluctuation in sleep, pulse or activity is a potential signal of danger.Over time, the user moves from reasonable health tracking to compulsive monitoring, especially when these devices are coupled with constant alerts, social comparisons, and subscriptions that unlock deeper analytics for a monthly payment. In this way, a closed economic loop is formed: anxiety generates usage, usage generates data, data allows for more accurate marketing, and the sale increases.
The digital space adds another psychological dimension to this phenomenon, namely what is known as "compulsive health research" or cyberchondria, where searching for symptoms online turns into an amplification of anxiety instead of calming it. Multiple studies in internet medicine indicate clear associations between this behavior and health anxiety. A recent comprehensive review reported that the prevalence rates of this pattern ranged between 30.7% and 55.6% in different samples.This psychological backdrop is economically relevant because companies do not operate in a vacuum; an anxious user is more likely to buy a "quick fix" that gives them a sense of control. Even when anxiety is driven by large-scale public health events, such as during pandemics, research shows how health anxiety levels have risen across large segments of the population. In many cases, the digital space becomes a marketplace of advice, subscriptions, and influencers selling artificial certainty in an uncertain world.
Programs that claim to rebalance the body through ready-made packages such as "hormone reset," "sleep reset," "dopamine reset," or "sensory reset." This language is appealing because it offers a simple cause for a complex suffering, and then offers a clear practical path: specific steps, a schedule, and a subscription.But in many cases it conflates three layers: general health advice that may be helpful, quasi-scientific claims that are difficult to verify, and an emotional experience that provides a temporary sense of well-being because the person "did something organized." From a market perspective, these programs are ideal because they can be packaged and repeated: a course, a time challenge, an app with daily tasks, then a paid second phase. Here anxiety works as a driver of ongoing subscription, not an endless solution.
The Global Wellness Institute has estimated wellness tourism at $651 billion annually, with growth in spending expected to continue through 2027. With a growing focus on sleep, market reports indicate that the sleep tourism market will reach $74.54 billion in 2024, with growth projected through 2030.What is being sold here? Not just a good bed, but an entire environment: silent rooms, rhythmic lighting, pillow menus, breathing sessions, and "sensory reset" programs." Even when some of these elements are based on reasonable principles, marketing logic may turn them into an imperative, as if natural sleep is no longer possible except by buying the experience. A clear class paradox emerges: when quiet, darkness and deep sleep become hotel products, it is clear that the market is not addressing the structural causes of sleep disturbance, but selling a temporary exception to those who can pay.
To understand the success of this model, one must look at the cultural construction of wellness. The rise of the "wellness as individual responsibility" discourse makes fatigue and exhaustion seem like a personal failure of self-management rather than the result of socio-economic conditions. The individual then becomes a perpetual improvement project, buying a product to fix one deficiency, only to discover another.McKinsey's analysis suggests that the global wellness market is approaching $2 trillion, with millennials and Generation Z increasingly moving towards personalized daily wellness. This personalization gives flexibility, but also opens the door to more precise targeting of anxiety, as each person becomes a different potential product basket.
The bottom line is that wellbeing as an economy is not just an innocent health boom, but an integrated market system that captures real fatigue signals, reframes them as permanent health anxiety, and then sells temporary control through replicable products. Some elements of this market are indeed useful, but it is dangerous when it turns into an anxiety factory that makes the body a perpetually imperfect project.
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