Top 2025 spa trends to help beat Blue Monday

As you will know if you have been following our blog this month, we have been turning January into Jan-you-ary, and using this dark and grey month associated with detox into a positive opportunity to focus on your own wellbeing.  While spring is just around the corner, you may already have seen that today being dubbed Blue Monday by the powers that be, and so it seems that there’s no better time to really take a moment to look after ourselves.

What is Blue Monday?

According to the eternally reliable Oxford English Dictionary, Blue Monday is:

“A Monday on which one feels gloomy or dispirited, especially because one has to return to work after the weekend… (in the northern hemisphere) [that’s us] a Monday in January, typically the third Monday of the month, that is characterised as the most depressing day of the year.”

Meanwhile, Wikipedia elaborates, explaining that the idea came from one psychologist Dr Cliff Arnall in collaboration with Sky Travel:

“The concept was first published in a 2005 press release from the company, which claimed to have calculated the date using an "equation". It takes into account weather conditions and thus only applies to the Northern Hemisphere.” 

The weather appears to have a lot to do with it, and perhaps the stretch between payday around Christmas and at the end of the rather long month. 

That said, The Independent once reported on it, and while there is a significant amount of PR spin in this depressingly dubbed day, there is also rather a lot of research into days, times and reasons when we feel most happy. It includes, but is not limited to, information from the Office for National Statistics’ (ONS) National Well-Being Programme, research by Professor Lord Richard Layard, of the London School of Economics, a co-editor of the World Happiness Report

Spa trends to help us feel better on Blue Monday

Thankfully, Professional Beauty recently released their roundup of the top spa trends for 2025 and they're already giving us the wellness boost we're all after, "from immersive multi-sensory relaxation and community-focused workouts to a renewed focus on the human touch". Amongst them, our personal favourites include:

Superfood skincare and supplements

Nutrition is the cornerstone of wellbeing, and lots of experts recommend different supplements for different life stages to boost our wellbeing and help us make the most of our diets. That trend is extending into skincare, with an increasing demand for more natural products, and with many of the common heroes of wellness-based diets now featuring in skincare products as well.

Professional Beauty writes: "Superfood ingredients are making waves in both beauty and wellness. Mushrooms, green tea and fermented beans are becoming staples in skincare, thanks to their natural, nutrient-rich properties."

Let's get physical: group workouts are back

We might not quite be harping back to the days of leg warmers and Olivia Newton-John-style workouts, but exercising in a group is back on trend. From Park Runs to barre classes, sling bungee to spin, Professional Beauty writes that exercising together adds that the:

"sense of community and accountability that solo workouts lack".

Naturally, it's all the better in the blissful surroundings of a spa.

Probiotic wellness - aka gut health

The swell of knowledge, interest, and action around the importance of gut health has been growing for the last decade, but it's been reaching a particular peak in the last couple of years. Those who are advocates of taking care of their gut become devotees that never look back. Naturally, that interest is giving rise to all manner of ways to aid and improve wellbeing, with a particular focus on probiotics from wellness drinks to skincare and nutritional consultations.

Professional Beauty writes: "Sales of probiotic supplements continue to rise as consumers recognise the connection between gut health and overall wellbeing, with probiotics also trending on social media – it had over 7m total searches across TikTok, Pinterest and Instagram in 2024."

Menopause-friendly wellness solutions

It's now well known that women's wellness has taken a back seat when it comes to knowledge and research since time immemorial. However, that is beginning to change, with increasing focus and investment on women's wellbeing.

This has perhaps been most visible in the growing conversation around menopause, from holistic support to hormone-balancing therapies, and ways to address the consequences of hormone change. The spa and wellness sector has stepped up into this space by encouraging that conversation to be opened up so individuals can explore different approaches and find what works best for them.

Multi-sensory relaxation and human touch

At the heart of the spa experience is the spa treatments, hinging on the power of touch and its therapeutic benefits. However, technology has also given us the opportunity to explore a wider variety of treatments, creating opportunities to enjoy a whole world of sensory experiences.

A multi-sensory approach is increasingly shown to have a world of wellbeing benefits, from sound to light, and touch. Whether you prefer the traditional experiences like sound baths and energy healing or high tech guided meditations and binaural beats with the likes of Somadome pods and Welnamis beds, it's about recognising the benefits of a multifaceted approach that supports mental as well as physical wellbeing.