Comedian Alice Fraser wants to find out what wellness really means and why it’s so big right now. What is it about the modern world that makes the concept of wellness so appealing?

According to Sarah Greenidge, who started a company to uphold the credibility of the wellness industry, we have all become more aware of the imbalance in our work-life balance: we’re stressed, we’re tired, so we look to wellness to feel better. Something that Brigid Schulte, the writer of the book Overwhelmed: Work, Love and Play When No One Has the Time, agrees with. But Greenidge point out that the wellness industry is capitalising on how much we yearn to live a better life. This doesn’t sit well with Alice. She will start her journey to understand wellness beyond the industry in the next episode by looking at the beginnings of the wellness movement in the 70s.

Alice Fraser meets wellness influencer and yoga teacher Julie Montegu at a high-end yoga studio in Chelsea, London. She’s going to dive into the history of wellness in this episode, but first she wants to understand what it’s like to promote wellness today.

Alice, who is going to take Julie’s class, talks to Julie about her day-to-day routine and realises Julie is extremely busy, despite promoting yoga and wellness. So how closely is wellness today related to the beginnings of the movement? Alice digs up three of the fathers of the wellness movement to find out how it all started.

Alice takes a closer look at the trillion-dollar Wellness Industry. Ex-wellness influencer Pixie Turner talks about the turning point in her journey through wellness and explains what made her take a closer look at the science behind some wellness claims. Sarah Greenidge, an independent auditor, gives us her take on what’s behind the growth of the wellness industry and gives us some pointers on how to spot pseudoscience as a news consumer.

Alice looks at the latest scientific research behind some areas of wellness. Ex-wellness influencer Pixie Turner tests Alice’s base level of scientific knowledge and does some myth busting. Dr. Sara Lazar tells us how meditation can actually alter the brain and Dr. John Cryan explains the evidence behind why what we eat affects our mood.

Alice contemplates why we all feel stressed and what it means to have a good work-life balance. She tells us about her stressful experience of corporate life and why she quit to become a comedian. Journalist and author Brigid Schulte talks about how different companies are approaching wellness and gives us some tips about how she has achieved a work-life balance that suits her.

In the final episode of the series Alice talks to comedian Sanderson Jones about why he decided to set up the Sunday Assembly, the world’s first atheist church. He believes our relationships with other people are the key to wellness. Then she meets two researchers from Stanford University who are carrying out a landmark study into the meaning of wellbeing. It turns out social connection is the thing people mention most when they are asked what it means to feel well.