The Dire State of Health in Workplaces and Athletics.

Why Somatic Practices—Not Apps—Hold the Key to Sustainable Wellness and Performance

In recent years, companies and athletic programs alike have turned to wellness apps and digital platforms in hopes of improving mental health, productivity, and performance. But these tools often miss the mark. A recent Fast Company article revealed that most workplace wellness programs fail—not because of poor intention, but because no one uses them. The same is true in sports, where performance apps and digital surveys are treated like panaceas. What’s missing? A real, human connection—and the power of the body as a gateway to sustainable change.

It’s time to stop pretending that technology alone can solve a crisis that is fundamentally human.

Workplace Health Crisis

Employees are struggling. A 2021 report by Mind Share Partners found that 76% of U.S. workers reported at least one mental health symptom, with 84% attributing these to workplace factors like emotionally draining work. Burnout—marked by exhaustion, cynicism, and reduced efficacy—is a financial and human disaster, with turnover costing companies three to four times a worker’s salary.

Physically, the picture is equally bleak: the RAND Workplace Wellness Programs Study (2013) found that lifestyle-related chronic diseases like diabetes, heart disease, and obesity affect over 50 million U.S. workers, driving up healthcare costs and absenteeism. Yet only 2% of employers report financial savings from wellness programs, and fewer than half even evaluate their impact.

Athletic Mental Health Crisis

Athletes face similar mental and physical challenges, compounded by unique pressures. A 2016 narrative review in Sports Medicine found elite athletes are vulnerable to mental health disorders due to stressors like intense training, public scrutiny, and career-ending injuries. In male team-sport athletes, anxiety and depression rates range from 5% to 45%, while female athletes face even higher risks—especially for eating disorders and body dysmorphia.

The NCAA’s 2022 Student-Athlete Well-Being Study revealed that female athletes report higher rates of mental exhaustion, sadness, and anxiety than males, often driven by perfectionism and constant performance pressure. These emotional loads impair focus, increase injury risk, and lower performance—but stigma keeps many athletes silent.

A Disposable Culture of Human Performance

One reason care is so often neglected—in both workplaces and athletic programs—is that the system doesn’t need to prioritize the people inside it. There’s always another person ready to take their place.

In sports, the pipeline never slows. There is always someone younger, faster, stronger, and cheaper waiting to move up. If a player gets hurt, burns out, or struggles emotionally, the machine keeps turning. The same holds true in corporate America. A constant influx of job seekers—many willing to accept lower pay or higher stress just to be employed—means there’s little structural incentive to invest deeply in employee health or long-term development.

This disposability culture is what allows chronic stress, mental health struggles, and burnout to go unaddressed. Programs don’t fail for lack of funding or strategy—they fail because the people in power are not invested in the sustained thriving of those beneath them. The machine is built to replace, not to repair.

That’s why wellness efforts feel hollow. They often exist to check a box, not to change a culture.

Why Mental Skills Apps Fail in Workplaces and Athletics

The Fast Company article drives home a hard truth: apps, trackers, and digital modules are often ignored. A 2024 study by Oxford researcher William J. Fleming, published in the Industrial Relations Journal, analyzed over 46,000 workers and found no significant well-being improvements from digital wellness interventions.

Similarly, a 2023 study in BMJ Open Sport & Exercise Medicine found that apps and surveys used with young basketball and gymnastics athletes failed to yield actionable outcomes—largely because they ignored lifestyle stressors like sleep deprivation or training overload.

The Illinois Workplace Wellness Study (2019), a randomized controlled trial involving nearly 5,000 employees, found that a comprehensive digital program had a slight increase in health screenings but had no effect on medical spending, behavior change, or productivity.

In athletics, a 2024 Scientific Reports review on athletic mental energy (AME) found that digital tools targeting mindset and motivation didn’t meaningfully bridge the gap between performance and well-being. These apps tend to attract already motivated, healthy individuals—leaving behind those in the most critical need of support.

Why don’t they work? Because behavior change doesn’t happen in a vacuum. It happens in relationship—through eye contact, energetic resonance, and co-regulation.

The Illusion of Innovation

To be clear, not all wellness and performance apps are useless. A few are thoughtfully designed and evidence-informed. But many others prioritize marketability over meaningful outcomes. In an increasingly saturated space, apps are often judged not by their clinical efficacy or transformative impact, but by their UX design, celebrity endorsements, or number of downloads.

This raises an uncomfortable question:

Does it matter if the app doesn’t move the needle for athletes or employees, as long as it sells? In too many cases, the answer seems to be no.

This is the darker side of the digital wellness boom: platforms can thrive financially even if the people using them don’t. When mental health and performance are reduced to products, care becomes a commodity—and the human outcomes become optional.

Digital Tools Can’t Replace Human Connection

Employees often ignore generic, one-size-fits-all platforms that feel impersonal. Athletes—especially at the elite level—require deep trust to open up about inner struggles. Headspace can’t offer that. Calm can’t respond to the subtle cues of an athlete’s breathing pattern or micro-movements.

A 2019 Journal of Applied Sport Psychology study found that mentally healthy teams displayed stronger cohesion and cooperation—but only when supported by in-person interventions. Real human presence creates real accountability.

Apps are easy to ignore. A 2022 Kindbridge report found Division I football players spend 43 hours a week on their sport—not including school, recovery, or life. When time is scarce, tools that don’t offer connection fall to the bottom of the list.

For companies and athletic programs, digital wellness tools have become a low-effort way to signal care without doing the vulnerable work of culture change. But signal isn’t substance.

Somatics: The Power of Embodied Learning

Somatics—practices grounded in body awareness, breath, and movement—are uniquely positioned to meet this moment. Why? Because they work with the nervous system directly. They’re experiential, not informational. They’re relational, not transactional. And they’re deeply human.

1. Embodied Learning Drives Lasting Change

Behavioral change is more likely when it’s felt in the body. A 2017 Management Science study found that employees who participated in wellness programs offering embodied practices—like walking groups or movement classes—saw a 10% increase in productivity, tied to motivation and job satisfaction.

In athletics, somatic tools like performance yoga or mindful movement reinforce motor learning, breath regulation, and emotional awareness. These practices are felt, not explained—making them stick.

2. Somatics Regulate Stress at the Root

A 2020 Lancet review found that multicomponent stress management programs—including breathwork, movement, and mindfulness—modestly improved cardiometabolic outcomes. Unlike apps, somatics down-regulate the sympathetic nervous system (fight-flight-freeze) through real-time co-regulation with a skilled practitioner.

This is especially critical for athletes and high-performing professionals, whose bodies carry the residue of years of stress, injury, and expectation.

3. Community and Psychological Safety Are Built Through Presence

A 2019 JAMA study found that health behaviors improved modestly in workplace wellness programs due to peer effects—people changed because others around them were changing.

Somatic groups amplify this. Whether it’s employees practicing breathwork together, or athletes moving in sync through a mindfulness drill, shared embodied experience creates belonging and trust—two cornerstones of mental health.

4. Presence Counters Burnout and Performance Collapse

The 2023 Harvard Business School study emphasized that mental health supports must be integrated into workplace culture—not added on as tech afterthoughts. Somatics do just that.

In sport, the 2016 Sports Medicine review pointed out that emotionally intelligent coaching mitigates stress. Somatic practices help coaches become more emotionally attuned—because they model presence and teach regulation from the inside out.

5. Somatics Boost Performance by Building Capacity, Not Just Coping

Fleming’s 2024 study showed that well-being improves when people feel useful, connected, and purposeful—like during volunteer work. Somatic tools (especially brainspotting and guided meditation) create these same feelings internally by helping individuals access clarity, self-trust, and resilience.

Breathwork enhances vagal tone, which improves recovery and emotional balance. Grounding practices increase proprioceptive awareness, which sharpens reaction time. Brainspotting helps athletes process injury trauma and mental blocks, improving fluidity and confidence under pressure.

These are not “nice to haves.” These are the foundations of performance.

The Case for In-Person Somatics

The research is clear. We don’t have a content problem—we have a connection problem.

Employees and athletes are burning out. They are lonely, dysregulated, and overwhelmed. Digital tools might offer convenience, but they cannot replicate the energetic presence of a skilled facilitator attuned to breath, posture, and tone.

Somatics offer a powerful, evidence-backed alternative. They do not treat wellness as an add-on—they integrate it into the human experience. They do not require another screen—they invite people back into their bodies.

It’s time to stop outsourcing well-being to apps and start investing in people. In the workplace and on the field, somatic practitioners don’t just help people heal—they help them perform. That’s the kind of future worth building.

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If you’re a company, team, or athlete ready to move beyond apps and empty checkboxes—and into the kind of wellness that actually works, reach out. With 15 years of experience across elite sports and organizations, I help people train their nervous systems, process pressure, and build resilience from the inside out. Through somatic tools like yoga, breathwork, mindfulness, and brainspotting, we don’t just chase performance—we create it, sustainably. Let’s build something human, connected, and real.

Metta,

Drewsome.