The Unlimited Wellbeing Festival Comes to Nottingham Motorpoint Arena

The Wellbeing Festival comes to The Motorpoint Arena, Nottingham on the 12th May. Set to be a fun-filled and action-packed day for all the family, there is to be over 100 health and wellbeing related classes, demonstrations, talks and workshops included in the price of the ticket. 

With my past history, I’m all for hearing about ways to stay well, as should everyone really. Visitors to the festival will also be able to enjoy a range of relaxing beauty treatments and complementary therapies or go shopping in the marketplace with over a hundred exhibitors to choose from. Beauty…Shopping…What’s not to love?

I was invited along to a special preview of the event this week and to find out how the whole thing came about. We’re told to wear loose comfortable clothing or gym wear as we’ll be trying some of the treatments on offer.  We’re also told to take a towl and a yoga mat if we have one. Intriguing!

We are greeted by Dave Leverton, Chief Operations Officer for the company behind Unlimited Wellbeing, who explained that they were bringing the event to the arena following the success of a similar event last year at Pride Park in Derby which attracted thousands of visitors. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jb0RFv3Mzi0).

But what is the story behind the show? Founder and CEO of the company, Sanj Corepal, took over to tell us how it came about.  Three/four years ago he was living the life a lot of people can only imagine.  Nice big dream house, a Bentley, 2 dogs.  Spent a lot of his time working abroad traveling first class. His employees were happy and earning bonuses. Then one day everything changed in Sanj’s world.  He didn’t feel right, it was he says because of all the pressures and stress of every day life.

Panic Attacks crept in leading him to speak to doctors and counsellors.  Sanj knew he had depression but couldn’t understand what it was.  He wrongly thought he was too strong to be affected by depression and searched for answers, but no one could tell him.  Frustrated by this, he packed up his belongings at work in a box one day, walked out, phoned the chair man of the company from his car and quit his job.

So what now?  As he saw it he had two options- disappear to the Himalayas and search for the meaning of life or move on.  Sanj did try disappearing for a bit but he knew that wasn’t the answer, so he came home and took a mindfulness course.  (He now also teaches Mindfulness to others).  He then thought, how can we get to a stage where everyone has access to specialists to practitioners in one place, where people can ask for health advice?.  So it came about that because of his issue, like thousands of others, having had the need for somewhere to go.  He has created an online portal – one place to go to find a well being practitioner.  The portal is non profit making and free to join and it means the public can now easily find a practitioner or event.

The next issue Sanj had was how does he get people to know about the site and what help is out there? Most people don’t know who they need to see – is it a Reki expert or a therapist? They just don’t know and they’re not willing to spend the money because they don’t know. So he put together the Wellbeing event to give a snap shot of different workshops, to see if theres something that really appeals to you.  If it does – great – it’s good for you and your well being and if it doesn’t, fair enough, you’ve tried it and you know what works for you and what doesn’t.

The company also allows people to access private health assessments at home – they did this because the NHS are so stretched and the big companies like BUPA can be expensive – their’s is an affordable option.

The group want to ensure that in the future everyone has access to support. If you’re in a cooperate environment and HR says you need to go and see a counsellor, it may not be the right sort of counsellor that you end up going to see, so the website is a communication portal to enable you to do that.

Their mission in next two to three years is to make sure that Nottingham and the East Midlands is really the wellbeing hub of the UK.   They are slowly moving forward with their hopes but there are still many more micro practitioners around who have day jobs too, they want to grow the industry so that they don’t have to do that.  There’s definitly a lot going on in the business. We were lucky enough to have access to some mini treatments and taster sessions of the event – Including a Indian head massage, massage and a health check.

We also got to experience Laughter Therapy. They say laughter is best medicine, ‘LOL Laughter Works’ are physiotherapists clinical hypnotherapists, but they are also laughter therapists. The principle of the therapy is that the body doesn’t know the difference between the memory of laughter and the real thing. Personally for me it’s not something I can see working for me.  I’d rather watch a funny movie than force myself to laugh, but that’s the beauty of the taster sessions and the Festival, that you find that out now.

Next up was the Human Lie Detector.  Based in Nottingham, David Stanton, has mastered the art of telling if another person is lying by their body language and the small inflections that often go unnoticed.  Having worked in the Police Force for years and as a Police Phycologist, David now helps them catch criminals with his detection talents.  I found this guy and his stories really really interesting and could have listened for much longer, so he’s definitely one to catch and look out out for, having already appeared on This Morning and The One Show. We definitely picked up some tips too, so look out everyone!

The Gong Bath experience ended our evening and it was the perfect way to relax using sound therapy. The coach had already improved her fibromyalgia symptoms with the treatment, so it’s certainly something to look into if you have similar.   This was the reason we needed our yoga mats and cushions.  We laid on the floor with our eyes closed and listened to the sound of the gong.  I’m going to be honest here – it did sound a bit like a cross between the incidental music from a suspense movie and a distressed horse at times.  That said, I did relax.  I found it a bit like hypnotherapy, I’ve not had a personal session but we’ve probably all listened to audio at some point and found the most random things come into your mind when you try and clear it.  Including memories from the past, it can actually be quite emotional, so please stay opened minded and give it a go!

Guests to the festival will have the opportunity to take part in an exhilarating group ‘Skatercise’ class with two-time British bronze medalist, Mark Hanretty before Mark is reunited with his 2012 series partner, fitness guru Rosemary Conley to lead a Dancing on Ice themed masterclass where participants can learn to skate like the stars.

Tickets for the Unlimited Wellbeing Festival are on-sale now.

Adult general admission                         £13.50

Family general admission                       £32.40 (2 adults and 2 juniors aged 5-17)

Concession general admission             £8.10 (Junior aged 5-17, Over 65’s, NHS/Emergency Services personnel)

Under 5’s                                                      Free of charge (must have a ticket. Please contact the box office to add an under 5’s ticket to your order)

Prices are listed with admin and venue facility fees included.

Tickets can be purchased online at https://www.motorpointarenanottingham.com/online/unlimited-wellbeing-showvia 0843 373 3000 or in person at the Motorpoint Arena Box Office, Bolero Square, The Lace Market, Nottingham, NG1 1LA.

The Dancing on Ice Masterclass and group skatercise class are included in the ticket price subject to availability. Spaces may be reserved online on a first come first served basis.

Unlimited Wellbeing have pledged to donate £1 from every ticket sold to YoungMinds, the mental health charity supporting young people.

Purchase a ticket for the Motorpoint Arena car park and enjoy parking within just a few minutes’ walk of the Arena! Purchase your car parking ticket for £10 per car when you book tickets online. Click here for more information.

For accommodation nearby click here.

By Tanya Louise

Editor

Disclaimer: This was a press event and is not a sponsored post. I was however given tickets for the forthcoming event.

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