Understanding diverse human states is our starting point for better recognizing and supporting mental health at events, according to Rachel Milford.
“Events reward being ‘on,’ and many attendees feel they can’t step away without missing something,” says Milford, founder and managing director of PNEUMA, a Las Vegas-based company and frequent Caesars Entertainment partner that creates wellness experiences that blend experience design, hospitality, sensory design and evidence-informed. “Planners can change that by building in quiet, unstructured space and short resets that are part of the program rather than an escape from it.”
Milford says it’s also important to design for the nervous system knowing that lighting, sound, scent and pacing all impact how people feel.
“A high-stimulus environment for three days straight is exhausting, even for extroverts,” she says. “Contrast is the gift.”
You should treat your onsite event team the same way you treat guests, Milford says, which can be difficult because margins are tight and people who work in the event space are wired to run on adrenaline for days.
“But hospitality starts with each other,” she says. “Your team's nervous systems will thank you for it.”
It’s also helpful to give attendees something to take home, according to Milford, such as a practice they can repeat in the car, the office or at home that extends care beyond the event.
Real support
David T. Stevens, a wellness architect/host, co-founder of Olympian Meeting and chair of the Global Wellness Institute’s Meetings and Events Initiative, says meet professionals can’t think about mental health support as a mental health “activation.”
“We have to think about what we’re actually asking people to endure: back-to-back sessions, constant networking, noise, screens, disrupted sleep, travel, alcohol and almost no time alone,” says Stevens, another frequent Caesars Entertainment partner and lead instructor and course curator for MPI’s Event Wellness Certificate. “Then we put a quiet room somewhere and call the event wellness-forward. NOPE. We can do better by designing whitespace into the agenda, giving people permission to opt out by calling things ‘optional,’ creating genuinely quiet environments, reducing unnecessary sensory and cognitive load, helping people connect meaningfully rather than forcing networking with music that’s too loud and making sure attendees know where real support is available when they need it.”
Our industry still has a habit of treating exhaustion like a badge of honor, a perception that we must overcome, according to Stevens.
“When someone tells us how impossibly busy they are, maybe our first response should occasionally be, ‘Are you okay?’ or ‘Can I help take something off your plate?’” he says.
Creating opportunities
Supporting mental health at events doesn’t always require adding another hour to an already-full agenda, according to Sepideh Eivazi.
“I want to stand to start every event with four minutes and 44 seconds where the attendees can recenter and regulate so they can receive the information and get present,” says Eivazi, founder of Dawn of the Earth, a psychedelic integration and somatic breathwork practitioner and a frequent Caesars Entertainment partner. “That’s why I created ‘BET ON YOURSELF’—a love letter to humanity and hospitality, and my stand and giveback to an industry that has given me so much.”
The ritual of self-devotion, regulation and remembrance that defines BET ON YOURSELF is achieved through breath, music, movement and presence that creates an intentional interruption, according to Eivazi, “a moment to step out fight, flight and freeze and remember yourself.”
For Eivazi, supporting mental health begins not with fixing people, but with creating safe spaces where people can return to themselves.
“Mental health at events shouldn’t only be something we talk about,” she says. “We have to create opportunities to embody it.”
