The 10 Kookiest Wellness Practices I’ve Tried in the Last 15 Years

Have you ever wondered if postindustrial alienation of labor and the general breakdown of community ties could be abated just by more human connection? Well, I put it to the test by signing up for a group hug therapy session in Venice, California, where I was given a quick tutorial on how not to be creepy (ask before you hug and engage in any physical contact, and don’t expect any sexual contact). While it definitely felt good to get hugged en masse while having a pleasant chat or just being silent, I can't say I wanted to continue the practice when, shortly thereafter, the Covid pandemic lockdown happened.

These days TikTok can’t shut up about the powers of magnesium, and I’m proud to say I was an early adopter. When a woo-woo (that’s my shorthand for her alternative wellness practices, and said with love) friend suggested I try some of her magnesium oil on my feet before bed, I jumped to try it since I thought it would be moisturizing. Welp—it wasn’t, since the “oil” is just magnesium dissolved in water, but I did get the benefit of having the practice soothe me to sleep. Whether it’s from the magnesium actually penetrating my skin or from simply getting a foot massage, I’ll admit I’ve been doing this for years now and sleeping well. My favorite is Alo Magnesium Reset Spray, in case you were wondering.

Los Angeles is no stranger to bizarro exercise regimens, yet even I believed exercising on a super-charged vibrating plate had to be a joke. Not so, I learned, after I took a 27-minute class at a tiny studio called PlateFit in which I stood on top of a two-foot-square metal plate that moves up, back, crossways and forwards superfast, forcing all kinds of muscles you didn’t know you had to keep you from flying off. During the class, the instructor had us finesse the plate speed as we squatted and afterward, my entire body felt adrenalized. (Perhaps relief at having not been sent flying?) The next week I was deeply sore and, sorry for the TMI, but all that shaking was a revelation for my “digestion.” The studio has since moved across town so I’ve not been back, but PureWow’s TikTok content creator is all over a home version that’s selling on Amazon, so I’ve got my eye on it to keep the buzz going.

Since I was no longer interested in the cuddle puddle with humans, I moved on to trying the self-soothing practice of cow hugging, in which I visited a farm full of rescue animals and spent up-close-and-personal time with my arms wrapped around bovines. It’s been years, but I can still feel the warm fur on my cheek and the steady strong breathing on my neck, and I’d go back in a heartbeat. Really just thinking about it is like a mini-nap for my stressed nervous system.

So much of what I’ve covered in the wellness space involves sleeping—how to do it better, how to make it happen faster, how to keep it going. And things got really high-tech when I tried the Sensate 2 wearable sleep device. Unlike like so many protocols that try to quiet the mind (from melatonin to meditation), this rechargeable little bean vibrates as it rests on your chest and is designed to activate your vagus nerve, which runs from the cranium to the gut. The device feels great—a little like a purring kitten.  Functional medicine doctor Dr. Damien Downing explained that the vibrations stimulated the sympathetic and parasympathetic nerves, in other words, as I wrote when I tried it in 2023, “it isn’t some Cali hogwash, it’s a real place in the body that causes real and measurable effects.”

You report on wellness, you’re going to learn some real eye-opening facts about digestive health and environmental and systemic toxins (watch this space: Wellness Director Sarah Stiefvater deems 2025 as the year of the liver). But some would say I’ve been onto this trend for a while, or least for since last year, when I famously had 3 colonics in 3 days at a no-electronics desert spa. I lost 5 pounds, but more importantly, learned that I feel really uncomfortable but ultimately peppier if I don’t have social media or snacks to self-soothe.

Melatonin makes me feel punchy in the morning, but without some sort of sleep aid, my mind begins racing as my head hits the pillow. (My troubled sleep compatriots out there can relate.) But there’s a solution out there—specifically on TikTok, where consumer interest on magnesium spray was up 102 percent year over year in 2024. I wanted to see if I could heighten the effects of magnesium topically by ingesting it in a powder and bingo! A teaspoon full of magnesium powder in tea before bed really chills me right out—and I don’t have the 2 am wake-up that I might get with wine.

Honestly, I’m just starting this and can’t really say if I am getting a big benefit from mouth tape, a trend that emerged in 2022. (It’s touted as a cure for everything from snoring to a weak chin, and its desired effect, nasal breathing, is believe to lower blood pressure.) However, I will say it’s causing me to make sure my allergies are under control, so that I don’t suffocate in the middle of the night.

Anytime, anywhere I have a chance to get a NAD+ IV treatment, I am so there. This expensive (around $350) treatment infuses a compound called Nicotinamide Adenine Dinucleotide into the bloodstream. NAD is a co-enzyme that’s naturally found in human cells, but breaks down as we age, get stressed, get injured, etc. All I know is, after having an hour-long NAD+ infusion, my brain felt sharper, I had a feeling of well-being and energetic optimism. Note: In a pinch, a quick B-vitamin shot or B vitamins delivered in an IV drip that adds hydration makes me feel better, if not quite as euphoric.

Hormonal fluctuations from menopause have wreaked havoc on my sleep schedule, but now in a new-improved way: I’m filled with anxiety and racing thoughts as I still my body for sleep. Of late I’ve gotten good results from the Elemind headband, a rechargeable device that reads EEG brain signals and, using AI, delivers instant acoustic feedback to dull the brain’s “monkey mind.” It sounds like a faint series of pulses and then conk—not to make it sound like the elevator in Severance—I’m out. And if and when I wake up mid-sleep, I can just hit the “go back to sleep” button without switching on the light.