… Providing healthy food options for artists (or employees). I think that in the music world we’re going to be seeing a lot more attention paid to eating well on tour, stocking the tour bus with healthy essentials and having healthy riders in place. I’ve noticed that over the years, the riders are getting healthier even before I start tweaking them.
The pandemic pause brought us to a moment of collective reckoning about what it means to live well and to work well. As a result, employees are sending employers an urgent signal that they are no longer willing to choose one — life or work — at the cost of the other. Working from home brought life literally into our work. And as the world now goes hybrid, employees are drawing firmer boundaries about how much of their work comes into their life. Where does this leave employers? And which perspectives and programs contribute most to progress? In our newest interview series, Working Well: How Companies Are Creating Cultures That Support & Sustain Mental, Emotional, Social, Physical & Financial Wellness, we are talking to successful executives, entrepreneurs, managers, leaders, and thought leaders across all industries to share ideas about how to shift company cultures in light of this new expectation. We’re discovering strategies and steps employers and employees can take together to live well and to work well.
As a part of this series, we had the pleasure of interviewing Emmaline Rasmussen.
Emmaline Rasmussen is a Registered Dietitian specializing in neurology and integrative medicine the founder of Sound Nutrtion, a company that provides nutrition and wellness services for touring musicians and creative professionals, integrating ancient traditions with cutting edge western medicine. We believe musicians are high level performers and thus should be on high performance diets — much like athletes — to play energetic shows over a long career.
Thank you for making time to visit with us about the topic of our time. Our readers would like to get to know you better. Tell us about a formative experience that prompted you to change your relationship with work and how work shows up in your life.
When I was in college for nutrition, I was studying to be a sports dietitian. However, I had several friends in music and in other creative pursuits and would hear about their experience on the road, and how draining it could be. Going from one timezone to another, never sleeping in the same place, the long nights, constantly being surrounded by people and adoring fans, interspersed with periods of isolation and the feelings of loneliness of being away from home, from family and friends, and significant others. The creature comforts in your life, and not being able to have a routine. I had this “aha” moment. Athletes are on the road, they go through similar experiences. They have the same challenges in terms of group dynamics and frequent travel, along with the pressure to perform. And yet athletes employ full time dietitians to aid their performance and better adapt to the stressors of constantly being on the road and to stay well. I remember at that moment while I was studying to be a sports dietitian, I felt like what I should be doing with my time instead was serving the music and arts community, and addressing the wellness needs of touring artists.
I remember thinking, “why is it that professional athletes and other performing artists like dancers have this but musicians don’t? Their performance on stage every night is an athletic endeavor. It’s high energy, moving around under the heat of the lights. They’re often sweating through their clothes, they’re dancing and jumping around onstage. They might be playing outdoors at a festival while battling the sun and the elements. We provide a host of wellness services to professional athletes to overcome these obstacles, but none of that exists in the music world.
Harvard Business Review predicts that wellness will become the newest metric employers will use to analyze and to assess their employees’ mental, physical and financial health. How does your organization define wellness, and how does your organization measure wellness?
Wellness is creating and maintaining healthy habits, whether at home or away, that support physical and mental health as well as connection with family, friends, and colleagues. With my clients it’s usually with bandmates, crew members, roommates and more. Creating and maintaining connections that support your relationships, social wellness, mental health, nutrition, physical activity and having a routine of some sort. Creating a ritual that allows you to sleep an adequate amount each night, to engage in behaviors that can reduce or manage mental health struggles and stressors of life.
For instance, whether it’s meditating, taking time to breathe, engaging in a physical activity practice like yoga, or anything else that might address your physical health and unique mental health needs. Being active on a regular basis, staying hydrated, limiting or avoiding alcohol, and using it in a healthful manner. Limiting stimulants, and using those in a, you know, judicious manner and at appropriate times of day that won’t interfere with sleep/wake cycles. Having a healthy and compassionate relationship with yourself, having self-awareness and, and being able to identify negative emotions and work through them. Being able to identify other aspects of your lifestyle that may need tweaking along the way is crucial too. It’s a journey that will ebb and flow that needs constant attention and support, whether that’s from those around you, and at times from professional support as well.
When I start working with any client, I typically perform a needs assessment, where I’ll get an idea of what they’re already doing to support their wellness, both on and off of tour, and where there might be room for improvement. Ways to streamline the process. So that can be finding meals that are compatible with their dietary needs on tour, creating an entire meal plan for them to follow on the road, evaluating their supplements and checking for contraindications, or even just taking a look at their lifestyle. One thing that I commonly find is that people who are struggling on tour typically are engaging in a lot of habits that are actually furthering the problems they’re having.
For instance, they might have poor digestion, or they’re not sleeping well. Because they’re not sleeping, they’re using stimulants, or caffeine in the evening time to get on stage. Later they can’t sleep after the performance and caffeine so they might try self-medicating by having a drink or two to try and be able to sleep. But then the drinks are actually interfering with the quality of their sleep. So the next day, they’re waking up, not feeling rested yet again, reaching for more caffeine, and the cycle continues. Basically utilizing things that aren’t really going to solve the problem, and at times might even make it worse. I do a needs assessment at the beginning, and try to understand what’s going on from a holistic nutrition and lifestyle perspective, and then guide my clients to make changes accordingly.
One thing that I have seen is that the less nutritious a person’s diet is at baseline, the more likely they are to struggle with various different mental health concerns. And we know already from the Help Musicians UK study that musicians have a much higher prevalence of mental health conditions than the average population.
Based on your experience or research, how do you correlate and quantify the impact of a well workforce on your organization’s productivity and profitability?
Historically speaking, musicians used to make money off of record sales and toured to promote a new record every couple years or so. Musicians these days are really not making much money off sales or even streaming. Because of that direction in the music industry, touring has become many musicians main livelihood. And because of that, they aren’t able to just go on tour maybe once every few years, to promote an album. Now people are touring constantly, and may have to do the festival circuit for financial reasons or in order to stay relevant or gain new fans. Don’t get me wrong it’s a lot of fun, but it’s exhausting.
Because musicians are now touring at least once a year, there’s this need to address their health on tour. It’s no longer something that happens infrequently for a few weeks that you can then spend the next year or so kind of getting back into your routine and recovering from. Tour is now their livelihood, not a quick stint away from home, so it can’t really be treated like a vacation from health. I have clients that are on tour more than they’re off tour at this point. And because of that, they have to create wellness routines, and find ways to stay healthy on tour, and to make touring feel more like normal life. If they can maintain a healthy routine while away from home, it helps prevent burnout, and allows them to perform more shows over a longer career.
Even though most leaders have good intentions when it comes to employee wellness, programs that require funding are beholden to business cases like any other initiative. The World Health Organization estimates for every $1 invested into treatment for common mental health disorders, there is a return of $4 in improved health and productivity. That sounds like a great ROI. And, yet many employers struggle to fund wellness programs that seem to come “at the cost of the business.” What advice do you have to offer to other organizations and leaders who feel stuck between intention and impact?
You would think that piece of data would be enough to inspire organizations to spend the money on these services because of the potential ROI. I would say that with my clients at least, there can be a bit of hesitation initially to spend money on wellness services, because it is another line item on the budget. But one thing that I’ve heard again and again is how valuable having healthy food and yoga or meditation has been for staying sane and feeling good on tour. And what a godsend it is not to have to worry about where your next meal is coming from, especially when you’re first starting out. It feels like half of touring can be just trying to figure out where your next meal is coming from, particularly before artists build out a team.
When you are big enough to have a tour manager, they are often so overworked that having to accommodate everybody’s different nutrition and dietary needs is one more thing to have to deal with, and they may not understand people’s different cultural dietary needs, food allergies, or personal preferences. When you’re past the point of having a tour manager, and you have an entire team that you’re touring with, it can help to have more people chiming in with suggestions of restaurants to visit. However, even though there’s more people to help crowdsource information from on where to eat, there’s also more opinions, and there’s more mouths to feed, which all complicate things.
It does certainly get more and more complex the larger a tour is. A lot of clients really do see the value in having somebody whose sole purpose is to find healthy meals for them on tour, and to accommodate everybody’s dietary requests. Oftentimes I’m calling the restaurants and checking certain menu items, making sure that the preparation of certain things can meet everybody’s dietary needs, and identifying menu items that meet each individuals’ dietary needs.
In today’s day we see that food allergies and dietary restrictions are far more prevalent. Experimenting with plant based diets is far more prevalent too, particularly in the music industry. Being able to accommodate everybody’s different needs is one more thing, and it’s a lot of work for a tour manager. Even before the potential return on investment, just being able to take one thing off of a TM’s plate has a lot of value. That’s something that my clients see a lot of value in. The feedback I end up getting is “we’ve never eaten this well before.” I’ve had some people tell me they don’t even eat this well off of tour. And because of that, when people are leaving the tour, instead of feeling burned out and like they need to go home and just collapse and recover for a month or two, they feel energized as they return to their homes and families. Instead of dreading tour, they’re actually getting excited to go on tour.
Both band and crew feel cared for too. It’s not just that immediate return on investment of enhanced energy and productivity. When people feel cared for by their employer, they are more productive. That assists with retention, and given the great resignation of 2021, employee retention is a big problem for many organizations, within music or not. If employees feel cared for, they don’t just feel like another number. They’re more likely to stick around and to report positive feelings about their employer.
Speaking of money matters, a recent Gallup study reveals employees of all generations rank wellbeing as one of their top three employer search criteria. How are you incorporating wellness programs into your talent recruitment and hiring processes?
This is something I think about a lot as a startup. I absolutely recommend and plan to provide mental health services at a significantly subsidized cost. Along with not just health insurance, but wellness benefits. Stipends for employee wellness, such as fitness memberships or other health services. I also think internal events that are wellness focused are great for team building–whether a quick break during the day or a day-long retreat. I’m very fortunate to already have relationships with a number of wellness oriented organizations, nutrition focused restaurants and more. Providing heavily discounted healthy food or samples from different healthy products out there is a perk I can easily afford to offer.
I would say any organization in some capacity should provide those types of wellness perks. You’ll see those oftentimes at like supplement companies or at healthy food companies, but if more organizations could provide healthy meals to their employees and provide stipends for meal delivery kits or pre-made healthy foods, it would make a huge difference. Other examples could be a catered lunch once a week or employee wellness activities. Those things not only help with getting employees back into the office, but also attract and retain talent.
So one way I plan to build my organization out is to have team meals and team building activities that are health and wellness focused. People don’t necessarily want just another pizza party or another happy hour. That’s not really enough to get employees back into the office. There is a wellness revolution going on, and it only makes sense that it will seep into workplace culture as well. That’s ultimately a good thing for both employer and employee.
We’ve all heard of the four-day work week, unlimited PTO, mental health days, and on demand mental health services. What innovative new programs and pilots are you launching to address employee wellness? And, what are you discovering? We would benefit from an example in each of these areas.
● Mental and Emotional Wellness: I not only lead yoga classes for my clients, but I also lead breathwork, and meditation practices for them as well. I’ve also started to showcase tutorials on my social media, or instructional how-to’s for these types of exercises. These exercises reach my clients emotionally and mentally in a number of ways. I’m not a mental health professional. But I also refer out for services often, particularly if somebody is struggling with relationships, with their mental health, or with substance abuse. With clients, we talk about sleep hygiene and maintaining a routine, particularly when on tour where it can be very difficult to maintain your bedtime routine. That sleep can significantly impact mental health and emotional wellness.
● Social Wellness: Being able to do these activities in a group lends itself to social wellness. There’s a lot of stressors in particular when touring. Being able to come together for a yoga class or share a healthy meal helps foster social wellness, group dynamics, and interpersonal relationships. That’s the case in most workplaces, larger companies that do wellness activities together like enjoying a nutritious meal or doing some sort of fitness activity, or a guided meditation helps foster a connection between people, and supports the social wellness within an organization.
● Physical Wellness: In addition to leading them through yoga and stretching, I try to introduce strength building activities. I also encourage people find things that they’ve already enjoyed that are physically oriented, but maybe don’t feel like exercise. Whether it’s going on a walk and just staying active, finding an activity that they love, and a friend or colleague to do that with, it can be huge. When it comes to physical wellness, that, of course, also means what they’re eating and what they’re putting in their body. It’s about teaching people to nourish themselves with food, rather than treating food as a reward or punishment.
● Financial Wellness: There’s definitely a return on investment in my work. For my clients it means fewer canceled shows. The more people are addressing their health on tour, the fewer canceled shows, and the more they can make from touring. So financially, there ends up being a return on this investment in their health and well being.
Can you please tell us more about a couple of specific ways workplaces would benefit from investing in your ideas above to improve employee wellness?
People address the root causes of their unique struggles in their wellness journeys through eating healthier, engaging in wellness practices like physical activity, meditation and breath work, finding healthy alternatives to stimulants for energy, and alcohol or other downers for sleep. As they find more natural alternatives rather than getting into a cycle of quick fixes, they feel better, more cared for by their team or emplowers, and in turn, have more energy to perform better and across a longer period throughout their career.
There’s this old school attitude that people need to use their pain to create art. And while yes, life experiences, relationships, and mental health can certainly be a great influence on art, one does not need to suffer to create great work. And a lot of artists find that they’re able to have more clarity in their work when they’re addressing their wellness. Everything we already said about tour, that’s all great, but we also see that they might, it might even improve the creative process to be mindful of one’s wellness, both on and off tour. They might find that they’re able to have more endurance in the studio. They’re not crashing in the studio if they’re eating well and fueling themselves properly. They may even have more clarity around their artistic vision, and that will make them more productive on and off tour as well, across their creative endeavors.
How are you reskilling leaders in your organization to support a “Work Well” culture?
As a dietitian and a yoga teacher, I always try to stay abreast of current trends when it comes to nutrition and wellness. The field and research is constantly evolving. As a former researcher, I feel very fortunate that I understand the science of nutrition, and how these studies are conducted. I’ve written and conducted my own nutrition studies, so I feel well equipped to understand the data that’s out there. I utilize that in my practice, I help clients to demystify certain trends and debunk myths.
Things that people read online or see on TikTok and social media are taken as truth with enough likes, so having that scientific background allows me to explain to my clients where these trends come from, how they are or are not scientifically based, and whether they’re appropriate for their lifestyle. I’m constantly staying up on the science and these trends, but am also translating that into meaningful guidance.
As the music industry continues to evolve, particularly in response COVID, we have to approach touring differently. We toured in a bubble during the delta and omicron waves, and even as things are getting closer to “normal,” touring looks very different than it did even a few years ago. In this post-pandemic world, as people try to make it back on the road even more than before, they’re trying to make up for lost time. They’re traveling even more and perhaps pushing themselves harder than before, packing more shows into a shorter period of time. Wellness becomes even more important. We’re realizing that we have to stay healthy, we have to support our immune systems to ward off sickness. But placing importance on wellness also allows us to stay energized and avoid burnout.
Ideas take time to implement. What is one small step every individual, team or organization can take to get started on these ideas — to get well?
One small step anyone can take is to take an inventory of your current routine, not just in terms of what you’re eating, but in terms of all aspects of your lifestyle. Your relationships, your morning and evening rituals, sleep schedule, exercise, what you put into your body, your digestion, hydration, energy and stress levels. There’s so many different aspects to wellness. See where the gaps and patterns lie, for instance on days when your energy levels are low are you eating fresh produce? Did you drink too much the night before and it interfered with sleep quality? See what small changes or upgrades to your lifestyle you can make, maybe it’s just incorporating more healthy whole foods. I always start with what a person can add rather than what they may have to focus on reducing or giving up, because for many people adding healthy greens to their diet is a lot easier than replacing a vice.
Some might be working at a computer all day, or sitting in a bus or van most of the day [while on tour]. It may feel that there’s no time for physical activity in the midst of a busy life. But everyone has time for just 10 minutes of stretching during one point of the day. That might help with some of the physical issues that they’re feeling throughout the day too as a result of their lifestyle. It’s a small change that will add a little bit of movement to their life. And I always say, start small, carve out 10 minutes for some sort of wellness habit once a day. And maybe from there, it’ll turn into 15 minutes, maybe it’ll turn into 10 minutes twice a day, maybe it’ll turn into an entire overhaul of their life. I always tell people they don’t need to work out for an hour every day. But if you can just move for 10 minutes a day, at the end of the week that’s 70 minutes of activity that you wouldn’t have done otherwise. And more than the activity, it’s about the commitment to yourself, making time for yourself. But I always recommend that people start small. And I think that this is true for organizations as well.
What are your “Top 5 Trends To Track In the Future of Workplace Wellness?”
1. Providing healthy food options for artists (or employees).
I think that in the music world we’re going to be seeing a lot more attention paid to eating well on tour, stocking the tour bus with healthy essentials and having healthy riders in place. I’ve noticed that over the years, the riders are getting healthier even before I start tweaking them.
2. More health care providers or wellness professionals on tour (or in the workplace).
We used to see this only at higher levels with major artists bringing a personal trainer or massage therapist on tour. But I think we’re going to start seeing a lot more of that and a lot more diverse health care and wellness professionals across all levels. This is also something I anticipate seeing more of in traditional workplace settings.
3. Culture of sobriety on tour and in the workplace.
I have a couple clients that are completely sober. But even the ones that aren’t, are typically not big drinkers. We’re going to start seeing more sobriety on tours, and more services and support for artists and crew members that want to stay sober on the road. Both the music industry and corporate world will likely start placing less emphasis on alcohol-fueled activities.
4. Dedicated Wellness Position in tours or at companies.
We’re starting to see more dedicated workplace wellness positions at large organizations, like a company nutritionist or a wellness figurehead. Many organizations have already started this, but we’re going to start seeing it even more in house because it attracts and retains good talent, and affects productivity and employee satisfaction. This is also something I am already seeing more of on music tours and anticipate seeing it at record labels, management companies and even booking agencies and production companies.
5. Financial Support for Physical Activity.
I first see more tours and organizations providing memberships for gym access in various different cities, or access to fitness classes in various different cities. This could even be stipends for in-house physical wellness services, like bringing a yoga teacher in for the day in certain cities when the opportunity arises. More fitness and outdoor activities on off days.
What is your greatest source of optimism about the future of workplace wellness?
My greatest source of optimism is that there’s so much excitement about wellness. The fact that it’s playing such a large role in how people are choosing where they want to work, I think that is going to force organizations to provide these types of services. I think that this kind of reckoning we’re seeing in the music industry, about the struggles of touring, I think that is going to force organizations to provide more services and to pay more attention to wellness. The conversation being out in the open about the importance of wellness and mental health is a huge source of optimism. Keeping these things in the dark doesn’t make them go away. And being able to talk about them out in the open actually strengthens connections. It’s a very important reminder that we’re all in this together and that we all suffer often on our own. Everybody has something that they’re dealing with, but it reminds us that we’re all in this together.
Thank you for sharing your insights and predictions. We appreciate the gift of your time and wish you continued success and wellness.