Wellness Orbit: an e-training platform for mental wellness

Wellness Orbit’s online training platform introduces an exciting new dimension to mental health, shifting the focus to proactive mental wellness and keeping healthy people in good mental shape, thus representing a departure from the regular disorder- and disease-based approach.

All Wellness Orbit e-trainings are in English and enable companies and organizations to train their teams. The trainings are designed to help employees learn how their inner domain functions and teach awareness based intrapersonal skills for better self-management. “We see wellness as the foundation for purposeful action. If you are mentally well, you work well, you are engaged with your work and function optimally in every way,” says Dr. Helena Lass, the founder of Wellness Orbit, psychiatrist specialised in mental well-ness, and the mastermind behind developing the content of the e-trainings videos.

Mental health problems can be prevented and kept from escalating into disorders

Wellness Orbit has developed training programmes “Performing Under Pressure”, “Well Fit for Work” and “Getting Things Done”, addressing people’s every-day needs in regard to how to concentrate, change habits, relieve stress and practice self-control and -motivation.

The backbone of all training practices is the video sessions with guided exercises by Dr. Lass. The training practice is open for participating and re-participating for three months to allow people to check and reinforce their progress and ultimately change their habits. All signature trainings come with a workbook and thorough self-evaluation quiz so that all participants can get personalized, honest feedback about their status and progress. Based on the self-evaluation results, each trainee gets individual recommendations on what to focus on next in order to keep improving his or her results. ”The feedback shows trainees whether they are applying what they learned providing a sort of an “alarm bell” that prevents them reverting “back to usual”. Thus, they can immediately take action to make sure that the new skills do indeed integrate into their lives,” says Dr. Lass.

As a result of the acquired intrapersonal skills, employees are more aware of their life, work and relationships and can actively take steps towards their own well-being and work satisfaction.

As this is a digital platform, employees can access Wellness Orbit trainings online. They can participate at a pace suitable for them, and there is no limit on revisiting training segments during the training period. People, who suffer a professional setback, face stress or are on the verge of burnout, can access the training when they feel like it, meaning they don’t have to wait or look for advice before it is too late. Besides employee stress, as a preventive measure, a lot of emphasis is placed on how people can use their inner resources more skilfully and develop potentials.

Today one out of every four people suffers from a mental health disorder at some point in their lives and currently there aren’t enough healthcare professionals to help. Dr. Lass knows first hand that basic ability to orientate in one’s internal functions alongside with the knowledge to manage them skilfully is the cornerstone for mental wellness and the key to prevent many mental health issues. Intrapersonal education means gaining resilience, a certain immunity against mental disorders.

A proactive approach to mental well-ness is such a new view on the inner sphere that no competitors have addressed it and scientific research on the possibility of the concept is in it’s infancy.

Dr. Lass is one of the first pioneers in the mental wellness arena to address the issue of proactive mental health.

An idea long in the making

The idea to develop an e-training plat-form to improve mental wellness came into existence almost five years ago. The idea evolved out of Dr. Lass’s vast experience as a psychiatrist, which convinced her of the importance of developing a new proactive, wellbeing-centred psycho-logical approach. “If people know what is going on in their inner domain, they can address the problems early on, so that those ways of reacting do not escalate into an illness,” says Dr. Lass.

If people know what is going on in their inner domain, they can address the problems early on, so that those ways of reacting do not escalate into an illness.

Wellness Orbit’s team includes four shareholding partners: Dr. Lass develops the trainings and acts as Development Director and her husband Kaur Lass, is in charge of daily business and managing the company; the third co-owner is a film studio that provides high quality audio and videos; and the fourth partner is an IT company, responsible for programming the solution and ensuring that the videos are accessible worldwide and stream smoothly. To ensure world class bran-ding a renowned branding guru Jürgen Salenbacher, who has previously worked with Paulo Coelho, Nike and the Kingdom of Bhutan, was involved in developing the visual identity for Wellness Orbit.

The trainings have been available for slightly over a year. Even in the absence of direct advertising and marketing effort, customer interest has been high. A majority of the clients have been from Estonia – current clients include the University of Tartu, Danske Bank, Fortumo and Nortal. The solution is rapidly gaining international interest – for example Hurtigruten and Abbvie have already trained their staff online with Wellness Orbit.

A unique solution

Wellness Orbit stands apart from competitors as it offers video sessions with more personal face-to-face training fee-ling which trumps most live trainings. The self-evaluation options, quiz between training sessions and workbooks provide more than any live trainings could. “It’s important for people to see and feel that I am talking to them alone, so that they do not feel like a passive viewer or fly on a wall,” says Dr. Lass. Today, most mental wellness, self-control and motivational trainings are conducted either face-to-face or in very small groups, but Wellness Orbit can reach thousands of people, remaining personal at the same time.

The true uniqueness of the mental wellness approach lies in collaboration with the new and unique educational program Human 2.0, which emphasises a new paradigm based on the primacy of awareness. “Active application of aware-ness, the cornerstone of Human 2.0 prog-ram, is the next step from mindfulness and I feel extremely honoured to have the opportunity to include some of those core principles into Wellness Orbit trainings. This approach opens new avenues to dea-ling with things that hinder or block individual progress,” says Dr. Lass.

The company’s plans are aimed at providing the service at English-speaking markets, current main targets being the US, UK and Australia.