Why is ventilation suddenly a trend abroad?

Ventilation as a self-care trend?

We Germans are not exactly the leading nation when it comes to exporting cultural goods; Apart from Oktoberfest, of course, which (unfortunately) is now also celebrated in the rest of the world with plastic lederhosen and stale beer. Maybe we were simply not yet aware of our rich culture with trend potential. Ventilation was only discovered abroad, especially in America. Yes, quite right. Ventilate. It’s a thing!

Ventilation as a wellness trend

“Luften is the German Fall Ritual You Need to Try ASAP (It Totally Refreshes Your Space!)” is the headline of an article published on the American blog “Apartment Therapy”. There, the author Lara Walsh writes that to ventilate, “open the window wide once or twice a day” to eliminate stale air and odors and prevent mold. She herself discovered ventilation on the TikTok channel of the German-American Lucie Rauschnabel, who encourages her followers to open the window regularly in an entertaining video.

Fresh air instead of air conditioning

Now it may seem special that ventilation is a thing in America; Yes, you could even make fun of it. However, you shouldn’t forget that you usually live there with air conditioning, one of the few electronic devices that has hardly made it into a German household to date. I once fought with the window on the 12th floor of a Central Park hotel on my first visit to New York; I shook it in vain, but it simply wouldn’t open, and I longed so much for fresh, exhaust-filled, summer-warmer city air. The air conditioning ran in the background and cooled the room to refrigerator temperature, of course I caught a cold.

By the way, I became aware that ventilation is something explicitly German through the influencer Uyen Ninh, who, after moving to Germany, took a most charming look at German life culture and dedicated herself to other German phenomena, for example the tilt window, the Deutsche Bahn, the slow internet (although the latter things have little trend potential).

Ventilation is good for your health

But isn’t it a bit of an exaggeration to call ventilation a self-care trend? Although there was constant ventilation during the corona pandemic because regular air exchange helps to reduce the viral load, it is about health and not wellness.

It’s a shame, by the way, that in America they only talk about ventilation and not about shock ventilation. It has that subtle, passive-aggressive undertone that makes the German language so unique for people who don’t understand us. Can something called shock ventilation be self-care? Lara Walsh writes in her article that after airing out you feel “more energetic” and “in a better mood”. “You’re doing something for your respiratory health and improving your digestion,” Walsh writes about “Apartment Therapy.” We’ll just leave it like this for now: ventilate. It completely refreshes your space!