Seventy-seven percent of workers say they've felt work-related stress in the past month, according to the American Psychological Association. Separate 2025 data from the Aflac WorkForces Report puts moderate-to-high stress at 72%, the highest figure recorded in seven years. Those aren't fringe numbers. That's most people, most of the time.
It helps to sit with that for a second when thinking about what National Wellness Month is actually pointing at. An entire month got carved out for wellness because so many people needed the reminder.
A Month Built to Support an Everyday Habit
National Wellness Month is younger than it feels. It was founded in 2018 by the spa and wellness brand Live Love Spa, with a specific goal: help people treat wellness as something built into everyday life, not something saved for special occasions.
Since then, hotels, gyms, and wellness brands nationwide have picked it up every August. That's a sign the idea resonated. Plenty of people had quietly stopped believing relaxation was something they were allowed to prioritize on an ordinary Tuesday, and this was a gentle nudge back toward it.
"Not Sick" and "Well" Can Feel Like Different Things
Most people measure their health by absence of symptoms: no fever, no injury, nothing officially wrong, so they call it fine. That's a completely understandable way to think about it, and it's also worth gently distinguishing from well.
Well tends to mean falling asleep easily and waking up actually recovered, not just conscious. It means a nervous system that can come down from a stressful day on its own, without needing hours of quiet to get there. Plenty of people can't quite remember the last time that felt true for them, which lines up with the stress numbers above.
Where HAELO Supports That Process
HAELO is a non-medical PEMF (pulsed electromagnetic field) therapy device, still part of a growing area of research, designed to work with the nervous system rather than override it. Its programs, things like guided recovery or performance sessions, live in the HAELO app, but they're delivered to the body through the HAELO coil itself.
The goal isn't to force recovery. It's to give an overworked nervous system a clearer signal that it's safe to actually downshift. That's support, meant to sit alongside sleep, movement, and stress management, not replace them. For anyone who already has a HAELO coil at home, National Wellness Month is a gentle prompt to use it a little more intentionally this month.
There isn't a single "right" week to start that. There's just this one, and the one after it.
Where to start: open a free session from HAELO's Recovery playlist today (no subscription required), or wait a couple weeks and join the community-wide 10 Day Reset running the back half of the month.
Learn How HAELO Works Explore the ProgramsFrequently Asked Questions
What is National Wellness Month? An annual August observance started in 2018 by the wellness brand Live Love Spa, meant to support wellness as a daily habit rather than an occasional treat.
Is National Wellness Month tied to a specific product or brand? No. It's an industry-wide observance: plenty of wellness and hospitality brands participate, and it isn't owned by any single company.
Do these stress statistics only apply to office workers? The most-cited surveys focus on the workforce, but the underlying pattern, chronic low-grade stress with little recovery time, shows up well beyond office jobs.
What exactly is HAELO, the device or the programs? Both, together. HAELO is the PEMF therapy device itself; the programs are content stored in the HAELO app and delivered to the body through the HAELO coil.
How is HAELO different from just resting more? Rest helps, but it doesn't always signal to the nervous system that it's safe to fully stand down. HAELO's PEMF technology is designed to support that specific shift, alongside good sleep and rest habits, not instead of them.
Note: HAELO is a non-medical wellness technology and is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.
