Hey Angels,
Last week, when we talked about the future of wellness, I kept coming back to one idea: after years of trying to optimise almost every part of our lives, our next step is not always to add more, but to become more selective about what we give our attention to.
That thought stayed with me, because it feels very close to what I am experiencing in my own life right now. I am running Angel, working on new locations and projects, studying wellness and nutrition, raising children and constantly taking in information from my team, research and the world around us. I genuinely love all of it, but I have also realised that when life becomes very full, the answer is not necessarily to become even better at fitting more into it.
Sometimes, it is to simplify. Maybe that is why I was so drawn to a book I read recently, The Art of Simple Living by Shunmyō Masuno, a Japanese Zen Buddhist monk and garden designer. The book contains 100 small practices for creating more calm and clarity in everyday life, and what I loved most is that none of them asks you to completely reinvent yourself. You don't need to move somewhere quieter, redesign your schedule or suddenly become a different person. Masuno's philosophy is much more subtle: change something small in the way you live, and notice what changes in the way you feel.
One of the first practices in the book is beautifully simple: make time for emptiness. Masuno suggests finding just ten minutes when we are not trying to accomplish, consume, respond to or solve anything.
When I started thinking about this idea, I realised that I had already been moving towards simplicity in other areas of my life without consciously calling it that. In the way I organise our kitchen, choose what I buy, approach food and try to create a little less unnecessary noise around me, I have slowly been learning that simplifying something often gives me more energy for everything that remains.
So this week, instead of asking what else we can add to our wellness routines, I want to ask a different question:
What can I simplify so I have more attention for the things I actually care about?
Our food, our bodies, our relationships, our work, our homes and ourselves.
Let's explore it together.
Alina 🪽
Angel Cakes Monaco
More than 800 people came through our doors in the first three days, which was far beyond anything we expected. It has been incredible to see Angel Monaco so full of life after everything that went into creating it.
At the same time, opening with a completely new team and immediately welcoming this many guests has been intense. And these days have reminded me of something I really want to share: behind every café, every kitchen and every beautiful project, there are people. Learning, adapting, working incredibly hard and trying to make everything better every day 🪽
We are still in our soft-opening period, so we are finding our rhythm and gradually increasing production. As a founder and chef, quality is incredibly personal to me, so these first weeks mean being very hands-on: cooking, teaching, adjusting and making sure that what reaches you feels like Angel.
There is still a lot of work ahead, but I am genuinely so happy with this beginning. Thank you to everyone who has already come to see us and especially for the patience, warmth and understanding you have shown our new team.
We felt your support from day one, and it means the world to us 💚
For the last few years, much of wellness has moved towards greater precision. We can track our sleep, measure our recovery, analyse glucose responses, follow HRV, monitor workouts and build increasingly detailed routines around nutrition, supplements and longevity.
A lot of that technology is genuinely useful, and I think it will continue to play an important role in the future of wellness.
At the same time, an interesting counter-movement is beginning to appear. The Global Wellness Summit has named “The Over-Optimization Backlash” as one of its defining wellness trends for 2026, describing a move away from treating wellbeing as something that constantly needs to be measured and performed correctly, and towards experiences centred on regulation, pleasure, emotional wellbeing and feeling more connected to the body.
I find this particularly interesting because it does not feel like a rejection of wellness. If anything, it feels like wellness becoming more mature. We have learned how much information technology can give us about ourselves, and now perhaps we are beginning to ask when that information is actually helpful.
This is where Masuno’s philosophy feels so relevant. He does not tell us to become better at optimising rest. Instead, he asks us to notice the life that is already happening:
when you drink tea, pay attention to the tea
when you eat, allow yourself to eat
spend a few minutes without filling the silence, take care of the environment around you and stop measuring your life against somebody else’s.
What feels more interesting to me is developing the ability to recognise when a tool is supporting us and when it has simply become another thing to manage:
you can appreciate your sleep score and still occasionally take the watch off
you can love podcasts and sometimes go for a walk without listening to anything
you can care deeply about nutrition and still allow dinner to be enjoyable rather than evaluating every ingredient on the plate.
Inside the Premium Edition you can discover:
🍵 Three Japanese-inspired recipes for a more intentional week: Carrot Miso Soup, Matcha Chia Pudding and Cold-Brewed Sencha Tea.
🌿 Simple practices inspired by Shunmyō Masuno’s book to help you create more breathing room in your day, use what you already have and make everyday routines feel a little less rushed.
🧠 A gentler look at comparison, people-pleasing, procrastination and anxiety, with practical ways to return your attention to what is actually happening now and what is genuinely within your control.
🔬 The science behind some of this week’s ideas, including research on mindfulness and stress, distracted eating, digital overload and what happens when we create more space for attention.
🎧 A curated Feed Your Mind selection with a new book on the power of small changes, a practical video on designing a simpler life and a recent podcast about worry, rumination and how our minds get caught in repetitive loops.
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