6 Summer Wellness Trends (And How to Use Them in Your Program)

Summer is a great time to refresh your corporate wellness program. People have more energy, days are longer and many want to spend time outside. These six summer wellness trends – first identified for summer 2025 and still going strong – can help you keep employees healthy, connected and engaged through the season. For each one you'll find practical ways to use it.

1. Personalisation

One-size-fits-all programs are fading. Wearables, apps and AI make it easier to match activities to individual needs – though technology alone won't get people moving (see AI can't move for you).

How to use it: offer a "menu" of challenges – steps, cycling, sleep, mindfulness – and let people pick. Use past participation data, for example from YuMuuv's statistics report, to see what your teams enjoy most.

2. Team Micro-Challenges

Big goals are broken into short, game-like challenges that teams tackle together – a one-week step sprint, a water week, a mindful week.

How to use it: run a month with a new theme each week, or quick 7–14 day challenges with team leaderboards. Read why quick challenges work.

3. Nature and the Outdoors

Workplaces are using nature as a wellness partner: walking meetings, outdoor team days and fresh-air breaks. Research supports it – spending at least 120 minutes a week in nature is linked with better health and wellbeing.

How to use it: run an outdoor steps or distance challenge, encourage photos of favourite routes in the challenge chat and add a custom "nature break" habit for people who can't easily get outside. See 5 summer team engagement ideas.

4. Inclusive, Cross-Cultural Wellness

Global teams need programs that work across countries, languages, ages and abilities.

How to use it: offer activities with different intensities, communicate in your employees' languages (YuMuuv is available in multiple languages) and make sure people who can't count steps can still take part – see how YuMuuv supports participants with disabilities. Tie challenges to local events and holidays.

5. Mental Wellbeing at the Centre

Mental health is now a core part of wellness, not an extra. Summer can bring its own pressures – childcare gaps, vacation cover and heat.

How to use it: run a mindfulness challenge, encourage people to switch off after hours and remind everyone of support such as your employee assistance programme. See how to reduce summer stress at work.

6. Flexibility and Hybrid Participation

With hybrid work standard in many companies, wellness has to work anywhere and at any time.

How to use it: choose challenges people can join from their phone, wherever they are; consider summer hours or meeting-free Fridays; and design goals that don't punish time off – see summer challenges that fit around vacations.

Bringing It All Together

The common thread is personalisation, inclusivity and whole-person wellbeing. You don't need to adopt every trend – start with one or two that fit your team. For planning, see our summer wellness challenge planning guide and the wellness challenge calendar.

Ready to put these trends into practice? Book a YuMuuv demo.