While some benefits such as stress relief are backed by solid evidence, they can be achieved without expensive hyped-up courses
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In the 2012 film adaptation of the Dr Seuss book The Lorax, a fable about capitalist greed, air is a commodity.
The mayor of Thneedville deprives the city’s residents of trees so a company he heads can sells bottles of air. He has, as one advertising lackey puts it, “gotten rich selling people air that’s ‘fresher’ than the stinky stuff outside”.
If a recent proliferation of real-life courses, books and online search interest is anything to go by, the act of getting that air into one’s lungs is also now commodified.
