Mental Health, a $537 Billion Market That’s Attracting Luxury Clinics

Mental health is now at the heart of public health concerns, with the global scale of the issue reaching unprecedented levels since Covid. Chronic stress, sleep problems and addictions are exacerbated by modern lifestyles and affect more than a billion people. Demand for treatment is skyrocketing. In fact, according to Allied Market Research (2021), the market could reach $537 billion by 2030. In response, public health institutions, as well as clinics, private institutes and hotel resorts, are offering solutions at a wide range of price points to improve well-being. Luxury, which has been very interested in this booming sector for the past decade, is no longer limited to material objects or status, but now encompasses overall well-being, whether physical, mental or emotional.

The Global Wellness Economy Monitor 2025 report reveals that the wellness economy has doubled since 2013 and will reach a new peak of $6.8 trillion in 2024. It is expected to grow by 7.6% annually over the next five years, reaching approximately $9.8 trillion in 2029. The credo of many establishments specialising in longevity, such as the Clinique La Prairie in Montreux, Switzerland, is that longevity is not possible without well-being. The world-renowned institution founded in 1931 by Dr Paul Niehans, a pioneer in cell therapy, it has been offering its flagship ‘Revitalisation’ programme for many years, designed to preserve youthfulness and prolong vitality. This was followed by the Master Detox and Brain Potential programmes. Today, it offers a new protocol of specialised mental health treatments. This is a first for Clinique La Prairie, developed by Olga Donica, Head of Innovation and Research in Longevity at Clinique La Prairie. She explains why Clinique La Prairie wanted to make a name for itself in this field.

What’s your role and why is your department now offering this new Life Reset programme based on mental health?

Olga Donica. I joined Clinique La Prairie seven years ago, where I initially led innovation within the nutrition department, then gradually across the entire organization. I currently head up the Innovation Science department. My team is responsible for all the scientific strategy of the clinic: we design the concepts behind the programs, the protocols, the screenings and the research collaborations. Everything that gives a scientific backbone to what we do sits in my department.

Before mental health, you led a major brain health project. What was its aim, and what did it become?

We ran a two‑year Brain Health Project in partnership with the University Hospital of Lausanne (CHUV) and its neuroscience lab, which Clinique La Prairie sponsored. The goal was not initially to create a program but to define, scientifically, what brain health means from a longevity perspective and to document a model of brain health over time.. The results were so rich that we decided to build a program from them. That became the Brain Potential Program, launched about a year and a half ago. It focuses on cognitive performance, executive functions and long‑term brain protection. It is about cognition, not psychiatric mental health.

So how did you move from brain health to mental health?

Once Brain Potential was running, we could see that we were still missing something essential: mental health. At the same time, evidence was growing that mental health is a major driver of longevity. There is no longevity without well-being. Poor mental health accelerates aging and worsens overall health. Because of our standards, we could not do a light or superficial version. About a year and a half ago, we began to build a serious, science‑based mental health program that could still fit in a seven‑day format.

You talk about nine pillars of mental health. What are they exactly, and how have you formalised them?

These hallmarks describe the different mechanisms that must be addressed together if you want to improve mental health in a lasting way. They are all interconnected. We have written a scientific paper describing this model and submitted it to the journal Frontiers in Psychology; it is currently under peer review. For now, this is a Clinique La Prairie model, not an official guideline, but we have put it into the formal scientific process.

Stanford Lifestyle Medicine also uses “pillars”. You claim your model is unique. Why?

The difference is not so much in the words you use, but in what you actually do with them. Many institutions can say that sleep, stress or gut health are important. What is far more difficult is to build a robust system of screenings and assessments that give you a clear, quantitative view of where someone stands on all these dimensions, and then to design coordinated interventions that act on them in a personalised way.

How does the Life Reset program actually work from the moment a client arrives?

When a client arrives, we start with a thorough assessment. Life Reset is a medical program, so we do full medical screenings, as in our other programs. We then add more advanced analyses over the week: blood markers, genetics, metabolomics, microbiome. All of this is used to evaluate the nine hallmarks: sleep, social connections, stress resilience, vitality, microbiome, vascular health, immunity, positive emotions, and cognition. Based on these results, the reference doctor, the nutritionist, the personal trainer and the therapists build a personalised journey for the week.

What is unique about Life Reset and how does it differ from a high-end programme that a luxury establishment might offer?

On top of the shared foundation, Life Reset adds four expert‑led journeys dedicated to mental and emotional health: mental health coaching with hypnotherapy, a meditation journey, a breathing journey and a nature immersion combined with aromatherapy. These are not single sessions. Each expert sees the client several times over the week and progresses step by step. The mental health coach is a clinical psychologist who integrates short, targeted hypnotherapy moments into the sessions when it is useful to go deeper. The meditation expert structures sessions with a clear process. The breathing expert, originally a diving professional, teaches how different breathing patterns can be used to manage acute stress, prepare for sleep or stimulate focus. The nature guide takes clients into the mountains for a long immersion. All this is anchored in scientific knowledge, not in vague “wellness.”

Who is Life Reset for?

It is aimed at people who feel deeply unwell but are still functioning: CEOs, entrepreneurs, professionals under extreme pressure, people going through big life changes. These are people who are on the edge of burnout even though they don’t have a label like “depression.” They are on the cliff; we want to catch them before they fall. Life Reset is not designed for people with severe, diagnosed psychiatric disorders or addictions. If, during the stay, we detect signs of a real psychiatric pathology, we have in‑house psychologists and psychiatrists, as well as 25 other medical specialties. In those cases, our psychologist gently proposes a psychiatric consultation and we adapt the care accordingly. It has to be done very tactfully.

Who are your clients, geographically, and how do you adapt the program to different cultures?

Our clients come mainly from the Middle East (especially the UAE), from Asia (with China as a key market), from the United States, and from Europe. We also have very loyal families from South America, such as Colombia, Argentina and Brazil, who have been coming for decades. For some of them, Clinique La Prairie is almost a family ritual. Because the program is personalised, it is naturally adaptable culturally. And we are going even further: by opening hubs and clinics abroad, we are adding local nuances. In Phuket, for example, in our future clinics opening in 2026, we will be working with Buddhist experts to integrate their meditation practices into our scientific framework. In Saudi Arabia, which will also welcome a Clinique La Prairie next year, our flagship programme will focus more on cardiovascular health to address local issues such as obesity and diabetes.

What was the market's response to the announcement of the Life Reset programme?

We launched Life Reset officially in November. The response was immediate. In a very short time we had around 160 requests, while our initial plan was about 100 programs per year. It confirms that mental health is a major concern for our audience and that they are actively looking for structured, science‑based help.

How many Life Reset clients can you host per week?

For now, between four and six per week. We prefer to start with a capacity that allows us to maintain the quality and personal attention we want, especially as we run other programs in parallel.

 On a practical level, how many professionals does one client interact with during the week?

Each client sees at least eight professionals. They meet their reference doctor several times, their nutritionist multiple times and at meals, a personal trainer, one or more therapists for body treatments, and the four mental health experts I mentioned: the coach, the meditation expert, the breathing expert and the nature/aromatherapy guide.

How would you rate the success of the patient's stay?

The core result we want is emotional resilience, the sense of being back in control of one’s body and mind. Under that, we aim for clear improvements in stress, sleep and fatigue. After a week, clients should feel less depleted, calmer and better rested.

Is the program covered by insurance, and what does it cost?

No one‑week program at Clinique La Prairie, including Life Reset, is covered by health insurance. Certain medical procedures are reimbursable in other contexts, but not these integrated stays. Our clients are mainly international and pay privately. The price of Life Reset is around 15,000 Swiss francs for the week.

You mentioned a scientific committee. Who are they, and what do they do for Life Reset?

Our scientific committee is made up of external experts: a neurologist and neuroscientist, an immune health and stem cell specialist, a geneticist, and experts in sports medicine, pharmacology and nutrition, among others. They work in universities, hospitals or companies. When we develop a program, we design it internally and then present it to them. They challenge us, validate the scientific relevance and help us refine it. We also have institutional partnerships with places like EPFL, the University of Basel and Biopôle. For Life Reset, the model of the nine pillars and the structure of the interventions were built and validated in dialogue with this network.