Wellness ≠ Aesthetic. Why the Pressure to Appear Well Is Doing More Harm Than Good
PREFACE:
This piece is part of our Mode Healthcare wellbeing series, drawn from the insights of the Lululemon Global Wellbeing Report 2024. In this edition, we examine how the performance of wellness—often curated and filtered—can quietly erode the real thing.
We live in an era where health has a highlight reel. Smoothie bowls. Pilates at dawn. Skin that glows like pressed silk. The aesthetic of wellbeing is everywhere. But beneath the visual polish, something more fragile is unfolding.
According to the global data, 61% of people feel societal pressure to appear well—even when they’re not. That’s not harmless. That’s chronic dissonance. And it’s making us sick.
The health cost of keeping up appearances.
Pretending to be fine when you're not—known in psychology as “surface acting”—leads to increased emotional fatigue, reduced immune response, and sleep disturbances. The data goes further: 45% of people feel pressure to pretend they’re happy, and 44% say societal norms actively undermine their mental wellbeing.
This is the paradox of modern wellness: in trying to look healthy, we lose access to the very behaviours—authenticity, rest, emotional release—that make us so.
WHAT WE SEE AT MODE
We regularly meet patients who “look well” by every conventional measure—but underneath, they're anxious, inflamed, or exhausted. They’ve mastered the art of holding it together, but at great personal cost.
At Mode, we’re not interested in appearances. We look at function. Hormone patterns, sleep architecture, gut integrity, mood variability, nervous system load. We ask better questions. We investigate what’s happening beneath the surface—and then build a treatment plan that brings the internal into alignment with the external. Quietly. Thoroughly.
THE MODERN WAY
At Mode, health isn’t something you perform. It’s something you feel. We offer care that helps you move beyond pressure and into presence. If you’re tired of the aesthetic game, we’re here for something deeper.
We have clinics in Bunbury, Dunsborough, Perth, Bangalow and nationally with our Telehealth Clinic.
Start with a free 20-minute nurse consult to see if Mode is right for you—or book directly with one of our expert doctors to begin treatment today.
