What do the Oscars' goodie bags say about Hollywood?

This year's gift bags may be the most outrageous yet. Photo / Getty Images

I know that anxiety is no laughing matter - it's a very real thing that's also become a fad, spawning a multi-million-dollar industry beloved by those open-armed embracers of such things, celebrities. In fact, anxiety consumerism isn't just a thing but the thing, as the contents of this year's Oscars gift bags prove.

At tonight's 91st Academy Awards, instead of the usual array of tech goodies, handbags and premium velour robes, A-listers will be handed swag bags packed full of stress relieving products and packages: everything from "Coda Signature premium cannabis-infused edibles, topicals and concentrates", which apparently aid relaxation and promote sleep; "an annual VIP membership to MOTA", LA's first cannabis-friendly social club; "private phobia relief sessions with the world's number one phobia expert, Kalliope Barlis"; Cannabis Facial Moisturiser and CBD-infused ointments from LA-based "age interventionist" Renee Lynn.

First of all, and I think I speak for all of us here, the thought that we don't have "age interventionists" in Britain - just Churchillian jowls, Shane MacGowan teeth and a fatalistic attitude towards inevitable decrepitude - is making me anxious.

Secondly: wow - they're really rolling out the green carpet tonight. If A-listers behave anything like I do with goodie bags - eating and applying the entire contents as soon as I climb into a cab - it'll be worth watching the live-streamed Vanity Fair party they all go to on Twitter, where hundreds of heavy-lidded, sniggering and stratospherically high stars will be leaving their statuettes on lavatory cisterns and nodding off mid-sentence.

When they're not following the canapé trays around, that is.

But actually the Oscar gift bags - which have nothing to do with the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and can contain up to six figures' worth of products and vouchers - have always been crammed full of curious items like dog mattresses, kids books and vouchers for CPR training, alongside more obvious luxury items.

So the real question isn't so much why this year's is a shrine to both anxiety consumerism and the marijuana marketplace as "how can the most pampered and cosseted one percenters on the planet possibly be in need of stress relief?"

Rafi Anteby, a martial arts expert who has worked with celebrities suffering from anxiety, and on Friday curated his own Oscar gifting suite at the Waldorf Astoria in Beverly Hills, insists the abundance of anxiety-quelling products and experiences he too had on offer this year are responding to genuine need.

"I always tell celebrities that I wish they could really have lives they put on Instagram - but they don't. And their hardships may be very different to the ones that we have, but they're real," he tells me.

"They need to smile at any given time and be nice to everybody. But they can't touch anybody or do anything, because the PR is telling them what to do along with everybody else. So anxiety? Absolutely. There is a very high level of anxiety in this town - and everybody is looking for a way to reduce that."

Actors are more prone to it than other performers, Anteby feels, "because they have this empty shell. And every time they have to fill it with something different. So they go into character, then wash that off and go into another character, and the amount of time when they can really experience something themselves ends up being close to nothing".

Because the designer clothes, bags and cosmetics that have traditionally filled Oscar swag bags and suites "are just more things with which to adorn their shell, they won't really help with what they're feeling inside".

Awards season is obviously particularly stressful, Anteby goes on.

"When I talk to the people involved in the Oscars, especially the nominees themselves, I see that they they're being pulled in a thousand directions."

So what they really need afterwards is to take time out, go somewhere else and replenish themselves." Especially, one assumes, if they lose.

To that end, Anteby gave away a variety of "serenity breaks" in his gifting suite this year, ranging from spa holidays at Bali's Royal Purnama hotel - where stressed out celebrities can be covered in healing black sand before being cleansed with holy water - and meditation trips to Costa Rica's Rythmia Resort, where guests work with a shaman, herbalists and doctors to reduce stress and "reach states of optimum tranquillity" that have been seriously challenged by losing out on that Best Supporting Actor gong to a newcomer with less than an ounce of their talent.

He also provided free safaris in Uganda, where A-listers' contorted minds can be soothed by "gorilla therapy".

"You literally submit yourself to the gorillas," Anteby enthuses. "You don't move and they come over and touch you and it's a really grounding thing to have the most powerful creature in the universe realising you are not a threat and being gentle with you."

But if you don't have time or inclination for soul relief that extended and adventurous, there is always CBD, which claims to calm and reset in 20 to 40 minutes - depending on how you administer it.

"It's perfect for actors," says Anteby, who has worked with Jackie Chan on set.

"Think about it. They often have to get up at 4am and then have punishing filming schedules and consequently trouble sleeping with all that adrenalin.

"Because crucially CBD doesn't affect your constitution, so you can be up and alert the following morning."

I very much doubt any Oscar attendees are going to be alert tomorrow morning - not if they've plundered their gift bags like the premium anxiety consumers that they are.

But I've always secretly admired the American tendency to try to consume their way out of a problem - and to be honest, the methods all sound pretty pleasant.

I've taken a test and was almost disappointed to find I had a "moderate" anxiety score.

Still, if I really focus on worrying enough, I'm sure I can work it up to high - and hotfoot it to the land of green edibles and gorilla therapy.

The Sunday Telegraph