Our predictions for the hottest trends to watch this year are brain health, gut health, sleep health and financial wellness. Being in the retail industry, products come and go quickly and we are always looking for items that can help you thrive on your wellness journey. I always suggest a “food first” mentality, but sometimes a supplement can be warranted if we aren’t meeting our needs or our individual needs are higher due to something in our genes. Let’s take a look at a few hot supplements that we think will be reaching new heights this year:

Multivitamin

Surprise! What’s old is new again. This is by no means a new recommendation but rather a gentle reminder that most people are not meeting general health recommendations. With this, I like to suggest a multivitamin as the “insurance policy” to better the quality of the diet. We are hearing more often that time is critical and eating may not always be at the top of someone’s list – so grab a little extra nutrition with this avenue.

Omega 3

The current recommendation is to eat at least 2 servings (4 oz each) of fish a week. Sure there are other plant-based options like chia seeds, walnuts, algal oil, brussels sprouts, etc to get in the omega-3 content as well but my guess it the amount you’d have to consume to receive the same benefits could be tricky for the average person. So if you aren’t consuming that amount, a supplement might be something to talk with your doctor about. A few of the benefits omega-3 touts are: lower blood pressure, reduced triglycerides, and a slew of other cardiovascular benefits.

Vitamin D

Unfortunately, it’s very common to see low blood vitamin D levels. This could be due to so many factors, but some things to try before supplementing are enjoying 3 servings of dairy and about 15-20 minutes of sunshine a day could do the trick in sustaining a healthy level of vitamin D. If not try taking your Vitamin D supplement with a calcium rich food as they bind together and helps the absorption.

Protein Powder

It’s a quick and convenient solution for my travel bugs, smoothie lovers, busy-bees, nutrient dense (vs. volume dense) eaters, and of course a few others but those are the big buckets. To find your ideal protein intake take your body weight and divide it by 2.2 to adjust it to kilograms. Then multiple the kilograms by 0.8 and again the original kilograms by 1.6 and that gives you a general range of where your protein needs could fall. Now there are flaws to this seeing as we are all uniquely different, but for most people this is a good starting point. If you aren’t meeting your needs maybe look at throwing in a quick shake or bar.

Hydration Powders/Tablets

After about 90 minutes of intense physical activity is when we start needing to look at additional electrolyte supplementation and there are plenty of products out there to choose from. Our suggestion is to first and foremost find something that tastes good to you and finding a low sugar option. Lately I’ve been loving up on Nuun supplements or Propel packets.

Sleeping Aids

Wellness has taken on a whole new meaning these past few years and everyone is on a different journey. If you are honing in on your sleep wellness something to try before supplementation would be to eat your last big meal a couple of hours before going to bed to let your food digest, a small handful of crackers about 30 minutes before bed since those carbohydrates are magical, creating a wind-down nightly routine, creating a consistent sleep schedule of 6-9 hours per night, etc. Let’s say you’ve exhausted those methods, try the supplement aisle next with items like: chamomile tea, SOM sleep drink, Nuun tablets for sleep, even melatonin supplements are all great places to start.