06 VIRTUAL WELLNESS

2019’s the year you’ll take sweating it out to another dimension. No, really – take Black

Box Virtual Reality, which combines resistance training machines with wireless VR headsets. In game space, players enter an arena, facing off fireballs and enemies, but IRL they’re on the gym floor, squatting, pressing and thrusting. Meanwhile, Equinox has rolled out the Halo Sport headset in its US gyms, which, in a process known as ‘neuropriming’, applies a mild electrical current to the brain in order to improve physical performance. The headset ‘induces a temporary state of hyper-learning, or hyper-plasticity, in the brain’, according to its makers, Halo Sport. And the virtual world is expanding into all areas of wellness. Meditation pods incorporating VR technology to transport you away to a tranquil setting and induce a feeling of calm and relaxation are coming to an office and a high street near you. The meditation masters at Headspace have partnered with La-based architects to create theirs – and it wouldn’t look out of place in an art gallery.