I sit down with the wellness guru Deepak Chopra to set the record straight on healthcare shortcomings
Deepak Chopra could say, “ I told you so,” about this watershed moment in wellness — a mainstream realization that the mind and body are connected and to heal means to treat both. The holistic doctor, best-selling author, and wellness guru is not one to gloat but rather get things done.
“It’s shocking to me that it took 40 years for modern-day scientists to understand that our mind and body are connected. We are at a pivotal point. Either we understand this, or frankly speaking, the future of healthcare is in peril Nobody is talking about health; they are talking about insurance. All of this healthcare reform has nothing to do with health or wellbeing. The future of medicine is precise; it’s personalized, it’s preventable, it’s participatory, it’s a process,” Chopra says.
Chopra’s call to action underscores findings in The Future of Wellness 2021 Trends Report by The Global Wellness Summit. The report says that wellness is poised to take a bigger seat at the healthcare table as medical science joins hands with holistic health.
The Global Wellness Institute (GWC) identifies this convergence of wellness and healthcare as one of the nine driving forces of wellbeing in 2021. According to the report, “We’re undergoing a new kind of medical renaissance. One where two complementary yet often competing entities—healthcare and wellness—will converge. Wellness is learning to lean into science, to establish standards, and hold itself accountable. At the same time, healthcare is beginning to borrow from the wellness playbook—transforming a once sterile and strictly curative industry into a more holistic, lifestyle-oriented, and even pleasurable one.”
Chopra has made it his life’s work to make medical, science, and healthcare institutions woke to holistic healing. He practices an ancient lifestyle medicine known as Ayurveda. “It’s a holistic system of the prevention and reversal of chronic illness that has been around for more than 5000 years, and now it’s becoming mainstream in Western medicine,” says Chopra.
The timing of this awakening comes amid a global mental health crisis stoked by the pandemic, which shone the light on shortcomings in our mental healthcare system. People are suffering, experiencing anxiety, fear, depression, sleeplessness, and loneliness.
The Global Wellness Institute set out to define mental wellness and discovered we are not ok. According to the GWC’s report Defining the Mental Wellness Economy, “In 2020, COVID-19 has accelerated the deterioration of our collective mental health and well-being. The pandemic has exposed the wide gap between mental health needs and mental health resources, as well as our vulnerability to mental distress even when we do not have a diagnosed mental illness.”
Cue Chopra who stands ready and steps in with a plan and a platform to democratize mental health care resources. The Chopra Foundation launched a new global mental wellness platform, NeverAlone.Love to bring mental health resources to the world. The website and app aim to help people experiencing a mental challenge regardless of language, culture, or creed.
“NeverAlone.love is a project that will awaken you to the fact that you are never alone; only the conditioned mind is alone. We are brought up to feel separate. There is me and everybody else. But in reality, that which we call me is an expression of everything. This socially induced hallucination of the separate mind is the cause of all human suffering. We are seeing in the world so much suffering that the only way out of it is to understand that emergence is an emergency right now,” says Chopra.
NeverAlone.Love offers curated content regarding pragmatic practices and tools to relieve mental suffering. The site also fosters scientific research in mental health therapies and assists in suicide prevention.
“We have an artificial intelligence bot named is Piwi. She can speak to you if you are sad or depressed and immediately help you because people are more comfortable speaking to a machine than a human being these days,” Chopra explains.
Chopra also launched a meditation app to foster healthy mental and physical habits. “We know that things like sleep and meditation, stress management, exercise, mind-body coordination, yoga, breathing, emotional resilience, happy relationships, balancing your biological rhythms, a connection with nature, and some kind of spiritual inquiry can restore homeostasis or what we call self-regulation in 95 percent or more of illness. If somebody is sad, they need to be helped. It doesn’t matter what the causes or the gene expression. The common factor in depression and anxiety is that if we don’t address it, we miss the point,” Chopra says.
The Global Wellness Institute gives credit to practitioners such as Chopra for “leading the charge to bring centuries-old natural and holistic mental wellness modalities into the mainstream, pushing science into areas where it has not gone before to consider the efficacy of ancient practices and emerging solutions.”
The takeaway is this—it’s time to start treating the whole human, not our parts and pieces. It’s time to expand the focus to include not just our ailments and our symptoms but what’s happening in the heart and mind. How do we feel? What do we think? And why?
If there is a silver lining to all the suffering brought by the pandemic, perhaps it’s the spotlight shone on our healthcare shortcomings, especially in mental health. The old-school diagnostic approach to putting patients in boxes based on a defined medical prognosis is dying a slow death as healthcare providers begin to see the whole human being standing before them.
“There is a movement right now amongst cutting-edge academics and scientists that this old system of diagnosis and classifying people into disease categories may be obsolete. When you look at chronic illness, it doesn’t matter if it’s diabetes or heart disease, hypertension or premature aging, or frequent infections, you will find a common factor. Number one is inflammation. Number two is anxiety. Number three is depression, and those three factors predict almost 95 percent of illness,” Chopra says.
I share Chopra’s frustration at the slow acceptance of ancient healing wisdom that other civilizations have practiced for centuries; however, sometimes, medical science progress takes a step back to march forward.
“Part of me is happy about this awareness, but part of me wonders why it took so long? I’m 74 years old, and when the mind-body health connection becomes mainstream, I’ll probably be dead. I’m impatient. Why did it take so long?” says Chopra.
The world is in pain. We need help. We need resources. We need a new mindset for healing. We need Chopra to continue making us woke.
“If you understand that right now the world is in pain, then everything makes sense. We don’t have to buy into the insanity of war, terrorism, global climate change, mass migrations, pandemics; this is the creation of our collective insanity. We need to wake up.”
Lions comprise 15-20% of the population are known as “early birds.” These people are early morning optimists with a medium sleep drive. They tend to be company CEOs who make a plan and stick to it daily and go to bed early. 
Bears account for 55% of the population and known as solar sleepers with a healthy sleep drive. They are extroverted, get stuff done with a great disposition and fun personality. “Most of society is built around the bear’s schedule,” says Dr. Breus.
Wolves amount to 15-20% of the population and are the night owls. They create novelty seekers, high-risk takers, creative thinkers, and tend to be more introverted. 
Dolphins comprise 10% of the population and have erratic sleep schedules. They have a short sleep drive, are highly intelligent and tend to be OCD with higher levels of anxiety. They never quite finish a project. 
Smart-casual is just a little step above casual on the formality scale. For smart-casual, you can simply take a regular casual outfit and add a few stylish or formal items. Take a nice shirt and chinos or a clean pair of dark wash jeans and add a watch or a pair of stylish heels.
PULSE Art Fair, one of the first satellite fairs to join Art Basel Miami, celebrated its 15
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The Casspir Project is a multidisciplinary fine art exhibition that encompasses a variety of media including installation, photography, oral history, and documentary film in response to Apartheid’s effects on South Africa’s culture and community.
PULSE Art Fair is my antidote to fair fatigue during the art-saturated week of shows and fairs because of its original programming, cutting-edge installations and sensory-rich experiences. I highly recommend this annual art fair during Miami Art Week.
“The SAF, whose mission is to educate about, advocate for and celebrate Sarasota’s mid-century modern heritage, undertook this project as an educational initiative,” SAF Chairman Dr. Christopher Wilson, Ph.D., said. “Recognizing that a majority of Sarasota School structures are private residences not normally accessible to the public, the SAF wanted to expose the forward-thinking principles of the ‘Sarasota School’ to a wider audience by constructing and exhibiting this replica.”
The Walker Guest house was Rudolph’s first design executed independently, and is considered among his most significant projects. Rudolph built numerous other influential residential buildings in the Sarasota, Florida region, including his so-called Umbrella House (1953) and Cocoon House (1950), designed with Ralph Twitchell. In 1997, Rudolph donated much of his archive to the Library of Congress, which helped establish the Library’s Center for Architecture, Design, and Engineering. By ensuring that his work was publicly accessible, he acted to see that his work could be preserved even if the original structures were not.”
The gallery’s mission is to help shape the discussion between art and design and to further increase the presence of cutting-edge design within the larger art world. 
Functional Art Gallery works with artists and designers who push the line between aesthetics and purpose, form and function, perception and intent.
The art installation Roots called attention to “alarming changes in nature and our environment” including disappearing forests and wildlife, polluted air and oceans, rising sea levels are rising, and an increase in extreme weather phenomena. Delta Air Lines and the Sacred Space Miami presented Roots by Atelier Marko Brajovic, curated by Ximena Caminos and produced by Alberto Latorre. The idea behind the art is to stimulate cultural and artistic responses to environmental change. 
The Roots pavilion is a self-supporting aluminum branching system wrapped with fine custom-made ropes and was designed by a parametric software mimicking the natural growth of a mangrove rooting system. In the middle of the pavilion, a large deck is used as a collective space for ceremonies and for three traditional Amazonian hammocks from which visitors can experience the immersive documentary SACRED COCA.
Learn more about the artists and art objects featured at Design/Miami in new episodes of The Design Tourist filmed at Miami Art Week.
The overarching theme at both shows was about creating awareness and connecting with humanity. At Spectrum Miami, I ran into two strange-looking characters clad in rags roaming the show as social sculptures. They were wearing Ghillie Suits, camouflage garb traditionally worn by snipers outdoors to blend in with their surroundings.
“The latest tile trends comprise the most nuanced and interesting design language we have ever had at our disposal. Tiles tell stories through the spaces we create for them. Ceramics this year are daring us to express ourselves and providing all the technical and aesthetic solutions to do so 
Simple and sleek steps aside for the more-is-more design language of Maximalism, expressed in tile with bold colors and contrasting patterns.
Maximalism brings a vibrancy to interior design that in recent years has been zombified with minimalism. Tile designs in clashing prints are expressed as graphic interruptions in contemporary living spaces without overpowering.
Maximalism, on the trend radar since 2018, gains traction as the leading design ethos with decadent textures, colorful tones and pattern clashes.
Self-expression in living spaces becomes playful with asymmetrical, randomized looks in the latest tile styles. Urban inspired designs such as graffiti also lighten up a living space. 
Popular cartoons illustrated on ceramic with Del Conca’s Felix the Cat and pop art inspired graphics take tremendous creative license to experiment with color, size and patterns to create one-of-a-kind surfacing for architects and designers. 
Some of t
One example is Dash by Raw Color with its grid-like pattern, random ever-changing rectangular compositions that combine different shades and different lengths. 
Modern interpretations of Art Deco, the Roaring 20s and organic art nouveau styles are gaining traction in living spaces. Tile designs draw influences from all of the aspects of the era, from fashion to lighting, architecture to jazz and a bohemian spirit in literature, photography, and theatre.
Tile styles reference Cubism, organic floral textiles of the period and geometric 
At the Coverings show, blue made a strong showing in tile designs with blue hues layered on floors and walls.
Expect to see a lot of c
Ceramic Wallpaper
Large porcelain slabs with minimal grout lines create the effect of wallpaper with the technical benefits of ceramic. 
These patterns are digitally printed on large ceramic surfaces that can be used as furnishing elements.
Dramatic Veins
Stone looks are making strong statements with dramatic veining amping up common varieties of stone including carrara, statuario, and travertine. “Popular aggressive stone looks include marble, granites, onyx and quartzite with dramatic veins and patterns,” says Fasan.
Dark marble looks with large swaths dominate this stone-inspired tile category according to Tile Council of North America. Also expect to see more tone on tone larger veins and intense contrast veining.
I saved the best for last. The following tile styles are my favorite picks at Coverings 2019. They rank at the top of my design radar for their fresh designs, fascinating textures and innovative technologies. My best in show pick is The Foundry Collection because it embodies all of the latest trends in tile: imperfectly perfect styling with its timeworn, weathered surfaces, strong use of blue, and mix of textured tile in random patterns. It really encompasses all that is happening at the forefront of design at the moment.
Also, I spotted several collections worth of show stopper status including this worn blue jean inspired tile with a texture that mimics the feel of denim.
My final show stopper pick is this modern interpretation of Terrazzo with geometric accents and large flecks. 
At the 
The rise of the Foodie culture fused with authentic travel is stimulating appetites for regional cuisine. Today’s consumer wants food to deliver a cultural experience. Food is a form of self-expression and the source of social media bragging rights. Meals that are Instagrammable and socially shareable and convey a backstory are capturing the palettes and imaginations of many who seek adventure in their travel and food.
Brooklyn has a thriving and prolific community of artists, artisans, craftspeople, and designers that puts it on par with other hubs of craftsmanship around the world. Products bearing the Brooklyn-Made certification are coveted by collectors and design aesthetes interested in authenticity and the backstory of pieces they acquire. Once a year, the borough showcases its maker community in an event known as Brooklyn Designs, now in its 15th year presented by the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce and co-produced with Novità Communications.
