Ancestral practices are being sold back to us, stripped of meaning.
Wellness was never supposed to look like this. What began as deeply rooted, culturally significant practices has been twisted into a global market of convenience products and watered-down rituals. Traditions carried for generations, often created out of survival and community care, have been scooped up by brands and influencers chasing profit. Instead of respect, there’s repackaging. Instead of cultural exchange, there’s exploitation.
What makes it worse is how easily these practices are stripped of their original context. Spiritual tools become décor. Communal healing becomes a solo self-improvement project. The deeper meaning behind these traditions gets lost, leaving behind an empty shell marketed as “mindful” or “natural.” These 13 trends reveal how the wellness industry keeps extracting what it wants while ignoring where it came from—and why that theft cuts deeper than a passing fad.
1. Smudging became a home fragrance trend.
What was once a sacred Indigenous practice is now sold in boutiques as a way to “clear bad vibes” from your living room. Smudging with sage and other sacred plants isn’t just about scent—it’s a spiritual ritual, deeply connected to prayer, ceremony, and respect for the natural world. But commercial wellness brands package smudge sticks like air fresheners, stripping them of meaning and flooding the market with mass-produced bundles.
Juliet Blankespoor of the Chestnut School of Herbal Medicine warns that commercial demand for white sage is leading to overharvesting, putting wild populations and the traditions that depend on them at risk. Worse, these communities still face legal and cultural barriers to practicing their own traditions, while companies profit freely from what was once criminalized. When sacred plants are reduced to trendy accessories, it turns spiritual heritage into a disposable commodity.
2. Yoga lost its roots to fitness culture.
Yoga’s explosion in the West transformed it from a spiritual and philosophical practice into a fast-paced workout class. Studios promise toned bodies and stress relief, but rarely acknowledge yoga’s origins in India or its deeper teachings about unity, discipline, and inner balance.
Breathing exercises and asanas are cherry-picked, while the philosophy that anchors them is left behind. Nadia Gilani explains in The Guardian that the Western wellness industry sidelines Indian voices, reshaping yoga to fit white consumer preferences while erasing its cultural roots.
The practice becomes about physical performance over spiritual growth. Yoga, once a holistic path toward self-understanding, is reduced to another item on the wellness checklist—marketable, profitable, and emptied of its cultural soul.
3. Meditation apps profit off ancient spiritual traditions.
Mindfulness and meditation didn’t start as quick-fix solutions for workplace burnout. Rooted in Buddhist and Hindu traditions, meditation was intended as a lifelong spiritual journey—not a productivity hack or a five-minute stress break between meetings. Lida Zeitlin-Wu writes for SSRC Just Tech that meditation apps repackage these spiritual practices as convenient tools for quick stress relief, stripping away their deeper cultural meaning.
The deeper ethical teachings, like compassion and non-attachment, are rarely mentioned. Instead, meditation is sold as a personal performance booster, detached from its communal and spiritual foundations. Subscription models and premium content packages put a price tag on practices that were once passed down freely, embedded in daily life and community. Stripped of context, meditation becomes less about transformation and more about temporary relief sold at a monthly fee.
4. Acupuncture became just another spa service.
Acupuncture, a cornerstone of Traditional Chinese Medicine, has been reduced to yet another wellness trend, often stripped of its philosophical and diagnostic roots. In many Western spas and clinics, it’s marketed as a quick fix for tension or a luxury add-on to a facial, far removed from its original context of balancing the body’s energy systems.
The commercial version glosses over the complexity of meridians, qi flow, and holistic diagnosis, offering standardized treatments that miss the depth of the practice. Practitioners trained outside of traditional frameworks often approach acupuncture as a menu item, not as part of a larger health system. Meanwhile, Traditional Chinese Medicine continues to be misunderstood and under-resourced, even as fragments of it are cherry-picked for profit.
5. Ayurveda got packaged into beauty routines.
Ayurveda, India’s ancient system of medicine, was never meant to be a trend. It’s a complex, holistic practice that balances mind, body, and spirit through diet, lifestyle, and natural therapies. But today, beauty brands use Ayurvedic buzzwords to sell oils, scrubs, and supplements—rarely explaining the depth behind them.
The deeper Ayurvedic philosophy focuses on prevention, balance, and respecting the individual’s unique constitution. In the commercial wellness world, these nuanced teachings are flattened into generic promises of detox and glow.
Products claim “ancient secrets” while disconnecting from the community healers and practitioners who have kept Ayurveda alive. What should be a personal, respectful approach to health becomes just another sales pitch.
6. Sound baths turned into Instagram events.
Sound healing has roots in countless cultures, from Tibetan singing bowls to Indigenous drumming ceremonies. These were never meant as background noise for content creation. In their original forms, sound ceremonies were communal, spiritual, and deeply intentional—designed to align energy, heal trauma, and connect participants with something larger than themselves.
Now, sound baths are packaged as trendy experiences, marketed to stressed-out urbanites looking for a quick escape. Influencers livestream their sessions, and high-end studios charge hefty fees for mass-produced serenity. The cultural origins are rarely acknowledged, let alone respected. When sound healing is commodified this way, it turns sacred rituals into content for social feeds, disconnecting the practice from its roots and its true purpose.
7. Cupping therapy became a celebrity wellness trend.
Cupping therapy, with its roots in Traditional Chinese Medicine and Middle Eastern healing practices, has been used for centuries to stimulate circulation, relieve pain, and support the body’s natural balance. But once celebrities started showing off their cupping marks like wellness trophies, the practice exploded into the mainstream—without much explanation of where it came from or why it matters. Now cupping is sold as a trendy recovery tool, often marketed by spas with little connection to its cultural origins.
The depth of the practice, including the diagnosis methods and holistic approach to health, is reduced to a visual gimmick and an upsell on a massage menu. By stripping away the context, the trend leaves behind only the spectacle, while the traditional practitioners and communities that kept it alive rarely see recognition or respect.
8. Herbal remedies got turned into overpriced wellness kits.
Herbal medicine has been a cornerstone of healing in cultures worldwide, from Chinese medicine to Indigenous herbalism and Ayurveda. These remedies were built on generations of careful observation, respect for the land, and deep community knowledge. But wellness brands now sell herbal “detox kits” and pricey tinctures, wrapped in sleek packaging and stripped of their cultural roots.
What once was shared knowledge, accessible and local, is now rebranded as luxury. Companies tout ancient wisdom without crediting the communities that developed it, and often mass-produce these remedies with little regard for sustainable harvesting.
Worse, they promote herbs as miracle cures without the guidance that traditionally accompanied their use. In the rush to market these products, nuance disappears—and so does respect for the cultures that cultivated this knowledge in the first place.
9. Sweat lodges were copied without consent or care.
Indigenous sweat lodges are sacred spaces for purification, prayer, and community connection. They’re led by trained ceremonial leaders who understand the spiritual and physical demands of the practice. But in wellness circles, makeshift sweat lodge experiences have popped up in luxury retreats and fitness studios, led by untrained facilitators with no ties to the cultures they’re borrowing from.
These knockoff versions are not only disrespectful but dangerous. Without proper knowledge, the physical risks of intense heat and dehydration can escalate quickly. More than that, turning a sacred ceremony into a for-profit trend dishonors its deep cultural significance. It turns healing into spectacle and erases the voices of Indigenous leaders who have long fought to protect the integrity of their traditions.
10. Reiki got marketed as a mystical quick fix.
Reiki, a Japanese healing practice based on energy transfer and intention, has spread globally—but often at the cost of its spiritual depth. In many Western wellness spaces, Reiki is advertised as a magical cure-all for stress and tension, divorced from its history and ethical foundations.
Originally, Reiki emphasized spiritual development alongside healing. Practitioners were expected to follow guiding principles that shaped both their character and their energy work. But commercial Reiki often skips these teachings, focusing instead on fast-track certifications and pricey sessions promising instant results. The practice becomes more about selling mystique than fostering true connection and healing. When the roots are ignored, what’s left is a hollow version of a once-deep tradition.
11. Breathwork got rebranded as a biohack.
Breathwork is far from new—it’s been practiced in various forms by cultures around the world, from yogic pranayama to Indigenous breathing rituals. But today’s wellness market frames it as a biohacking tool, designed to “optimize performance” and “supercharge productivity,” rather than as a practice of spiritual grounding and healing.
Workshops promise peak physical output rather than deeper emotional or spiritual release. Apps and courses focus on measurable benefits like reduced stress hormones, while skipping over the cultural lineages that shaped these breathing techniques in the first place. What was once about connection—to self, to community, to nature—is now pitched as a shortcut to personal success. And in that shift, breathwork risks losing the depth that made it powerful to begin with.
12. Henna got reduced to festival body art.
Henna has deep cultural significance across South Asia, the Middle East, and North Africa, used for celebrations, protection, and rites of passage. But in Western wellness and beauty spaces, henna is often treated as nothing more than trendy body art at festivals and pop-up shops.
The intricate designs, rich symbolism, and ceremonial roots are overshadowed by quick application booths and mass-market “temporary tattoo” kits. What should be a meaningful practice shared within community traditions becomes a party accessory. Even worse, these casual uses often ignore the natural, plant-based origins of henna, replacing it with chemical-laden alternatives that disrespect both culture and safety. In the rush for aesthetics, the history and heart behind henna get left behind.
13. Crystal healing became a billion-dollar business.
Crystals have long held sacred roles in cultures worldwide, used for protection, healing, and spiritual rituals. But the wellness industry turned them into commodities, mined unsustainably and sold as instant solutions for everything from anxiety to abundance.
Glossy shops and online influencers sell crystals with vague promises but rarely mention the exploitative labor or environmental destruction behind them. Communities, often in the Global South, bear the brunt of unethical mining practices while wealthy markets profit from the end product. The original intentions behind crystal use—respect for nature, spiritual connection, and mindful practice—get buried under mass consumption. In the race to monetize, the sacred becomes just another sales pitch.