Beyond Fads & Pressure: What I Learnt About Wellness In My 40s

'Tis the season of new and fresh resolutions. We start with making promises to ourselves with the best intentions, and then quietly struggle to keep many of them as the months unfold. That is a familiar truth, even if we do not always say it out loud. 

It is also the time when health and wellness advice begins to flood our screens. What to eat. How to move. Which habits to adopt if you want to start the year right. The volume is constant to be honest.

But before you absorb it all and rush to act, it may just be worth pausing - Remember not all advice is meant for everyone, and not every routine belongs in every life.

Knowing what you are consuming is just as important as deciding the course of action you take after consuming it.

Somewhere along the way, wellness has often stopped feeling like care and started feeling like homework. It has crept in quietly.

Through protein powders lined up on kitchen counters. Through the countless reels of morning routines that begin before sunrise. Through step counts, supplement lists, and rituals that promise longevity only if you just stay consistent enough.

For me, some days it feels like if I followed all the wellness advice online, I would need to wake up at 5 am, eat three kinds of seeds before breakfast, walk twelve thousand steps, lift heavy, stretch gently, meditate deeply, drink enough water to float, and still somehow remain calm.

And if I am honest, don’t most of us feel this pressure at some point? Even those who say they are not on social media are not fully outside its influence.

Wellness advice or pressure?

Today, you are either a consumer or a creator. There is no third category. Advice still reaches you through conversations, expectations, and the quiet ways we measure ourselves against others. 

Open any feed, and guidance arrives before you ask for it. What to eat. When to eat. How to move. How much to move. What habits are non-negotiable if you want to age well. 

The people delivering this advice often look impossibly certain. Perfect skin. Endless energy. I have watched this rise closely. Not from the sidelines, but from within it.

I have consumed this content, experimented with parts of it, questioned much of it, and watched women around me absorb it quietly.

That is where the line blurs. Between guidance and pressure. Advice can be useful when it is shared with care. But increasingly, it arrives stripped of context.

What worked for me must work for you. And if it does not, the problem must be your discipline, your commitment, your seriousness about health.

What we rarely stop to consider is who truly gains from this constant stream of instruction, because women do not arrive at wellness as blank slates. 

We arrive carrying history. Conditioning. Years of emotional weight tied to our bodies and to movement.

Many of us grew up with body commentary running in the background. Too thin. Too heavy. Too slow. Not sporty enough. Sports for girls were encouraged until a point, and then quietly deprioritised. Academics mattered more. Safety mattered more. Modesty mattered more. 

Movement gradually lost its joy and became something you did only if you were trying to correct yourself. Layer onto this years of caregiving. First as daughters. Then as partners. Then as mothers.

Women learn early to put themselves last. I see this pattern clearly in my own mother. She always made sure everyone else ate first. Only when something sat untouched long enough would she eat it herself. It has taken her well into her seventies to recognise that care does not have to come last.

This is why the wellness conversation today feels so charged.

Cutting through the clutter

While I was in conversation with Anupriya Kapur, a life coach who actively speaks about wellness on social media, she reflected on how far we have drifted from simplicity.

“We have started giving far too much importance to fads and forgotten how basic wellness really is. Sleeping on time, eating according to the season, walking every day, and practising yoga. When you follow these rhythms, the body and mind respond naturally.”

She also spoke about an aspect of wellness that rarely gets the same attention.

Wellness is not only physical. It includes the mind and the soul. The people you surround yourself with matter deeply. Especially for women as we age. Close, trustworthy friendships become essential. We need spaces where we feel safe. -Anupriya Kapur

It is a reminder that no protocol can replace emotional grounding.

Tanya Khubchandani, MPH, Founder and CEO of Elixir Wellness, sees another side of this story every day. Women walk into her spaces tired, not lacking motivation. 

They are managing work, family care, disrupted sleep, and hormonal changes that do not follow neat timelines. Social media has turned care into a checklist, and that pressure accumulates quickly.

“Wellness feels very loud right now,” she says. “Every feed is full of rules, routines, and products. Women are not failing at wellness. They are worn down by it.”

Her approach brings the focus back to fundamentals. Regular meals. Enough water. Seven hours of sleep. Daily walking. Strength training a few times a week because muscle becomes critical as we age. Only after this does she introduce care that aligns with a woman’s body, cycle, and stress levels.

When women ask her what they should focus on first, her response remains steady.

Choose one habit you can repeat for thirty days and observe how you feel. Progress is not just numbers. It shows up as steadier energy, calmer skin, and fewer crashes. -Tanya Khubchandani

Different vantage points, but a shared conclusion. Wellness cannot be loud and uniform. It has to be personal.

Wellness is for everyone

Many years ago, when I took up amateur running, running on the road felt exposing to me. I was aware of how my body looked. Aware of being watched. Every run felt performative.

But over time, something had eased. Appearance had loosened its grip, and movement became about capacity, not correction.

That understanding did not come from advice. It came from repetition. From experience. From forming a relationship with my body on my own terms.

Many women never had that space earlier. Which is why gyms feel unfamiliar. Weight rooms feel intimidating. Even today, I know women who hesitate to enter fitness spaces because they do not feel they belong there.

I sometimes take my daughter to the gym with me. Not to train her. Not to push her. Just to normalise the space. To let her see bodies of all kinds moving.

To make movement familiar rather than intimidating. I now know that confidence around movement grows through exposure, not instruction.

This is the emotional context wellness culture often overlooks. The years of postponement. The habit of waiting. The belief that care can always come later.

So perhaps the questions we ask need to soften. What should I have done by now? But what does my body need from me today? Not who has the best advice? But who speaks without urgency or fear?

Wellness should feel like support, not surveillance. Like an invitation, not a punishment. And certainly not like another arena where women feel they are falling behind.

Maybe the deeper work is not about constant improvement. It is about allowing ourselves to arrive without apology.

Because if wellness truly means well-being, it must begin with kindness. Toward our bodies. Toward our past. And toward the pace at which we choose to live.

Ankita Dhupia, a corporate professional, content creator, and a mom-of-two, loves sharing her journey of motherhood and finds joy in expressing herself through writing. | Views expressed by the author are their own.