STORY AND PHOTO BY KAREN BOSSICK
The Sun Valley Wellness Festival & Conference announced Tuesday afternoon that it will go totally virtual Aug. 21-24.
The conference had planned to offer a mix of in-person and virtual offerings but organizers decided this week it would be best to go entirely virtual.
“Indeed, it’s a surreal time for our world and if ever there was a time for wellness it’s now,” said Andria Friesen, Sun Valley Wellness Board President. “We have worked diligently to produce our 2020 Sun Valley Wellness Event with highly relevant content and have adapted it to a virtual online format so it is widely accessible to all, knowing that the information that will be offered is perhaps needed now more than ever.”
Many of the speakers will directly address the pandemic crisis, along with other wellness topics covering such subjects as depression, Alzheimer’s prevention, heart disease, cancer and neuroscience, Friesen noted.
Speakers include keynote speaker and sleep expert Matthew Walker and Dr. Seth Cohen, a University of Washington director of Infectious Disease Medicine who is on the frontlines of the COVID fight. Others include neurosurgeon Dr. Eben Alexander, microbiome expert Dr. Zach Bush, grief expert Nora McInerny and Positive Psychology expert Dr. Sasha Heinz.
Walker and McInerny’s TED Talks were among the top five most popular talks viewed in 2019.
Movement classes will be taught online by Jenn Perell Bush, Erica Linson, Brenda Powell and Katherine Pleasants.
The Experience Park, which had been slated to be held outdoors in Forest Service Park, will not take place this year.
SVWellness Virtual Passes are now on sale at www.sunvalleywellness.org