Delos, a company leading the charge in “wellness real estate,” recently unveiled Stay Well meeting spaces equipped with elements designed to create a healthier meeting environment. The spaces were added to MGM Grand’s conference center, and to help unveil them was Delos advisory board member Deepak Chopra. Chopra is known worldwide as an alternative medicine advocate, and some call him a new age guru. Kiko Miyasato chatted with Chopra after the unveiling.
What piqued your interest in the Stay Well brand?
Five years ago I was talking about how the environment should be an extension of ourselves. I got a call from the founder of Delos, who was thinking of creating wellness real estate, and we met and we started talking about how to make that happen. There’s been much research done, with collaborations like Cleveland Clinic’s Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health and other places, to document the effectiveness of space on our biology.
Are there any features within the new Stay Well conference rooms that you’re especially proud to implement?
The features I relate to most are circadian lighting because I’m a traveler and I travel all over the world, and I think light has so much to do with levels of energy, mood, sleep cycles. Those in turn are related to hormone cycles, blood pressure to body temperature levels, our regulation to homeostasis, self-regulation, all related, directly or in-directly (to lighting).
What’s your opinion on the juxtaposition of the Stay Well brand and Las Vegas, which some say is the city of overindulgence and vice?
Las Vegas is a city of maximum diversity. I took a walk last night and I saw a place where you could get an IV hydration for your hangover. ... So I think it’s always good to have an oasis in the desert, a haven in a place where there’s a lot of frenzy. You don’t want to change people’s behaviors if they don’t want to change. Self-indulgence, some of it can be very destructive; we’re not here to change that. We’re here to offer well-being, a joyful, energetic body and a restful, alert mind and lightness of being to those who want it.
What’s your opinion on Las Vegas?
Las Vegas is a fascinating place to me. It has some of the best entertainment in the world, some of the best restaurants in the world and some of the most interesting people in the world.
What are you concentrating on for the rest of the year?
My main effort right now is a scientific study called self-directed biological transformation (SBTI). You can go to choprafoundation.org and look for it. We’re doing a study that shows, already with the data we have, within five to six days with the following things—good sleep, daily meditation and yoga practice, exercise, healthy emotions and a good diet—you can change the expression of your entire genome at a cellular level. You can shift the markers of aging into a more youthful direction. You can decrease cell inflammation. You can increase an enzyme called telomerase that lengthens your life span. All this in five to six days. We are collaborating with scientists from Harvard, Mount Sinai, Scripps, UCSD and UCSF on this study. Once it is done I don’t think medicine will ever be the same again.
