Meet The Emirati Entrepreneur Serving Up Well-Being In The UAE

The Hundred is one of the first exercises in a classical Pilates routine. Done by pumping your arms 100 times while holding your legs in the air and keeping the core tight, it's a physically challenging, mentally taxing, and ultimately very rewarding move. It's fitting that entrepreneur and athlete Asma Hilal Lootah chose to name her Pilates studio—Dubai's first started by an Emirati female—after the warm-up.

The Global Wellness Institute, a nonprofit that releases a much-anticipated list of wellness trends every year, thinks that 2021 will be the year of the "Travel Reset." "Look for all travel to become wellness travel as manic getaways are replaced by slower, closer, and more mindful experiences," they predict.

Dubai is betting on it. For years, the city in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has been investing in medical tourism and expanding its holistic health care offerings to appeal to visitors from around the world, as well as its own people.

"Even before the pandemic struck, people in Dubai were becoming more concerned with their health and wellness," Lootah, who was born and raised in the city, tells mindbodygreen.

Since Dubai has such a high expatriate population, she says that many residents live apart from friends and loved ones, which takes a toll on health and outlook. "We have seen the importance of routine, self-care, and a conscious approach to wellness for many of them," she adds.

The Hundred Wellness Center has been celebrated for keeping up with the increasing demand for healthy food (their in-house vegan café sources protein from an organic farm in Abu Dhabi and offers gluten- and refined-sugar-free dishes), equitable workouts (they offer "ladies only" Pilates classes as well as coed ones), and holistic health services (including chiropractic care and infrared saunas). They've also led the way in introducing new practices and are the first and only center in the UAE to offer Gyrotonic, a recovery method that combines principles from yoga, swimming, and t'ai chi.

She thinks it's only fitting to incorporate nature into one's wellness regimen, as "in the natural world, living things coexist in harmony and vibrational alignment, and when we interact, it fills us with positive and peaceful energy." Lootah, a self-proclaimed tree hugger, thinks that healing in nature starts when we give it our full attention. "Simply looking at the moving tree branches can be so peaceful; it makes me pause (even just for a minute) and calms my busy mind from all the hustle and bustle around me," she says.

In addition to its emphasis on nature, Lootah says that well-being in the UAE also centers on kindness and understanding. "The UAE has annual initiatives led by the government, and a recent one was the Year of Tolerance," she explains. "It was part of a strategy to incorporate positivity throughout our daily lives and encourage us all to live in harmony with each other."

She considers tolerance to be one of the most important skills anyone can learn, and one that can massively boost health. "When you are tolerant and everyone around you is tolerant, you feel safer. It reduces stress and anxiety," she says. As such, she says that "simple kindness underpins our entire philosophy" at the center.