In hopes of getting Americans to chill out a bit, visit a spa or do some yoga, actress Mariel Hemingway started with a visit to Washington Thursday, taking her message to the frenzied and frazzled workers of Capitol Hill. She was there to promote “Wellness Week,” a week in March where spas, yoga studios and other places that promote “wellness,” open their doors for a discount. The actress and granddaughter of writer Ernest Hemingway also shared some simple pointers to achieve this thing called “wellness.”
“We’ve sort of become a society that thrives on the freneticism of our live, the stress of our lives, instead of realizing that it’s actually breaking us down,” she told Yeas & Nays.
Hemingway suggested some easy life changes such as taking a lunchtime stroll, drinking water before each meal, and making breakfast better. “Changing your breakfast — instead of running to Starbucks and getting a Pumpkin Spiced Latte and croissant and running out and yelling as you’re in the car because you’re late, getting up 15 minutes earlier — having a different breakfast, thinking different thoughts in the morning, these are the kinds of things that people are able to do,” she said.
Hemingway sees her pursuit of wellness-for-all as a companion to what first lady Michelle Obama is advocating through the Let’s Move program and the White House Kitchen Garden. “They don’t differ at all,” Hemingway said. “What I’d like to see, I mean in a perfect world, she’d be talking about how these choices could be made by everyone, all the time, we need to make lifestyle choices every day,” the “Manhattan” star continued. At the conclusion of her talk Hemingway encouraged folks to sing a “Wellness Week” pledge, which included seven easy lifestyle changes.
“If I pledge for the National Wellness Week or every week thereafter will I become beautiful like her?” asked Rep. Lynn Woolsey, D-Calif., who was on hand “If you promise me that, then I think I can get to the gym.”
