In his opening keynote for the inaugural Eudēmonia Summit, founder Sean Hoess offered a loose translation of the ancient Greek word eudemonia, which means to have a good or healthy soul. These days, we think of this as simply wellness, but for the Greeks, Hoess said, “it was more than just good mental and physical health. It was also your purpose in life, why we are all here on this rock together, and what we hope to accomplish.”
This sentiment was the palpable undercurrent throughout the Eudēmonia Summit, held November 1 to November 3, in West Palm Beach, FL, attracting more than 2,000 wellness and longevity enthusiasts over three days. Extensive programming featured a mix of movement, mindfulness, and learning — with topics spanning hormonal health, gut health, biohacking, longevity (i.e. aging), psychedelic therapy, stress and trauma, supplementation, and wellness technology.
Among the top experts on hand for the weekend were neuroscientist and podcaster Andrew Huberman, PhD; functional medicine pioneer Mark Hyman, MD; oncologist and AI health expert Siddhartha Mukhergee, MD; board-certified psychiatrist, professional chef, and nutrition specialist Uma Naidoo, MD; and muscle health expert Gabrielle Lyon, DO.
Since sitting is the new smoking, there was no shortage of movement classes. Over the course of the weekend the options included SoulCycle, HIIT (led by renowned health and wellness coach Jillian Michaels), a natural movement masterclass with Phil Daru (and legendary producer Timbaland), The Class by Taryn Toomey, Yoga with Adriene (plus many other styles), Pilates, and more.
Meditation led the mindfulness agenda, which included workshops, concerts, and daily Walking MindTravel Meditations, which are best described as a silent disco/guided meditation nature walk). Additional practices like pranayama breath work, Qi Gong, and other healing modalities set a decidedly balanced and grounded tone.
An area of the summit included a sampling of wellness services, where attendees queued up to try Therasage Contrast Therapy featuring cold plunges and infrared saunas, OxyHealth Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy, the Hyperice chair massage, and the incredibly restorative Shiftwave Nervous System Reset (which this writer sampled twice).
On the Exposome exhibition floor, more than 70 brands were featured, including key sponsor Function Health, which offers membership-based advanced biometric testing. Health technology had a significant presence in the form of apps, wearables, and the like — with functional beverages, supplements, and professional-grade skin care and recovery devices rounding out the mix.
Eudēmonia Summit sponsor Auro Skincare offers two serums, a day cream and a night cream with an overwhelming science-first approach. Their before-and-after and clinical results were on display for all to see — yet the conversation was dominated by the groundbreaking proprietary delivery system innovation.
According to Nayan Patel, PharmD, Auro Skincare founder and the author of The Glutathione Revolution, “Without glutathione, there is no longevity. After spending more than seven years trying to get the molecule small enough, we developed technology so once it gets within the skin it opens up. One or two months is all you need to see a remarkable difference in your skin. And all glutathione is doing is reducing oxidative stress.”
Dr. Patel learned about the Eudēmonia Summit through Dr. Hyman, who wrote the foreword to his book. “Coming into the weekend, my hope was that people in the health, fitness, and longevity worlds knew about the power of glutathione, but I’ve discovered that literally half do not.” After 13 years of selling exclusively to doctor’s offices, Auro Skincare recently launched DTC and has started partnering with spas as well.
Sakara Life was another Eudēmonia Summit sponsor with a little-known beauty bent. Though a nutrition/lifestyle brand that has skyrocketed to success over the past 10 years, co-founder Whitney Tingle explained that her own skin was a driving force when she and her partner Danielle Dubois started the company. “When I moved to New York to work on Wall Street, the cystic acne I’d been battling since puberty was at an all-time worst. When you have a skin issue, whether it’s acne or rosacea, or psoriasis, you’re wearing it on the outside. It’s not an internal condition you can hide.”
“Danielle had switched from medical to nutrition school and was learning about the gut microbiome. This was early days when people were just starting to talk about how these little microbes inside of us are controlling everything from our mood, our energy, our sex drive, and our skin,” Tingle recalled.
The skin care brand OneSkin also served as a Eudēmonia Summit sponsor — but interestingly positions its face and body products as “topical supplements.” CEO and co-founder Carolina Reis Oliviera, PhD explained, “We realized that all these products claiming to be anti-aging were not targeting aging itself, they were just targeting the symptoms of aging. So, we spent five years testing new molecules until we found the OS-01 peptide. This one is able to reduce the load of senescent cells that cause inflammation and induce cellular aging. This is the first molecule validated to be able to make your skin appear younger, behave like younger skin and look like younger skin under a microscope.”
There’s no question that the line between skin care and wellness will continue to blur, especially as science continues to advance. But just how intertwined can these worlds get? It seems Tingle believes the two may be one and the same… When asked if Sakara Life would ever expand into the skin care category, she said with a wink, “You’ll just have to wait and see.”
