Advertising students Joél Garza and Gabby Axelson stretched out at the health and wellness expo at SXSW.
From acupuncture to mushroom jerky, and sex toys to dental freshners, the Expo was booming with many people of many backgrounds. The sessions on health and wellbeing, understanding the importance of health to attendees of SXSW.
One vendor, Joaquin Brown, demonstrated an app called Yoga Wake Up. After attending a yoga class, he realized the value of breathing and relaxing when waking in the morning. An App idea was born. Instead of an annoying alarm, Joaquin created an app that wakes you with relaxing music and voice of a coach who leads breathing exercises to ready you for the day. With 40 different teachers and 120 different classes available, the app is adding more languages to their classes, to expand their reach globally.
AOMA Graduate School of Integrated Medicine was there promoting Chinese and integrated forms of medicine. One of the TAI students even experienced the benefits of acupuncture first-hand. Pain is really on everyone’s mind when thinking of acupuncture, but Hannah said, “The whole process was painless. Bassically less pain or similar to a bug bite.”
It was interesting that while SXSW attracts people from all over the world to communicate and learn about themselves and about each other, the Wellness expo provided opportunities to learn about health and living your best life. We left feeling immersed in the SXSW community, the wellness culture and were ready to get back to the action at Interactive.