You often hear how wellness is important for your lifestyle. But what is wellness actually?
Wellness is not just about maintaining your physical health or providing nutrition to your body. It is much more than that. Wellness is an amalgamation of mental, physical, and spiritual well-being. It is about practicing healthy habits each day to achieve a better lifestyle in the long run.
Why Is Wellness So Important?
To live a life of greater quality, it is absolutely necessary to maintain optimal well-being. Wellness is crucial because your well-being directly affects your actions and emotions. It is not a straight line that has a start and finish but an ongoing cycle.
Thus, it is essential for everyone to attain optimal wellness in order to lessen the likelihood of illness, control stress, and have a positive outlook on life.
The 8 Dimensions Of Wellness
The concept of the “Eight Dimensions of Wellness” is used to define the components that go into your overall wellbeing and to understand how each component of your wellness can be balanced to the greatest extent possible.
Dr. Peggy Swarbrick, a Research Professor in the Applied Department of GSAPP created the Eight Dimensions of Wellness. Each category of wellness is co-depended with one another. To attain optimal wellness, you should focus equally on each of these dimensions, which include:
There are a total of 8 different dimensions to wellness.
- Physical wellness
- Emotional wellness
- Occupational wellness
- Spiritual wellness
- Intellectual wellness
- Social wellness
- Financial wellness
- Environmental wellness
1. What Is Physical Wellness?
Physical wellness is the ability to maintain a standard of living that enables you to fully engage in daily activities without experiencing excessive physical strain or tiredness.
Physical wellness acknowledges the influence our everyday routines and actions have on our general health, well-being, and quality of life.
What can you do for your physical wellness?
Physical wellness involves listening to your body’s needs and taking care of it by making healthy choices such as:
i. Eat healthy: A nutritious diet helps in preventing a number of illnesses and medical issues, as well as in maintaining a healthy body weight, supplying energy, allowing better sleep, and enhancing brain performance.
Make a conscious effort to eat a healthy balanced diet that includes the right proportions of carbohydrates, proteins, fruits, and vegetables.
Try making nutritious food at home rather than stuffing yourself with all that junk food. Enjoy the process of your meal preparations and be mindful of what you are putting inside your body.
ii. Stay physically active every day: Consider taking up a physical activity that you enjoy i.e., swimming, running, or any form of exercise which gets you moving and makes it your routine.
Being physically active can lower your chance of getting diseases, helps you control your weight, and keeps you productive.
iii. Stay Hydrated – Keeping yourself hydrated by drinking about 2 liters of water each day has numerous benefits. It helps in temperature regulations, increases energy, gets rid of toxins, etc.
iv. Get enough sleep at the right time: You should get at least up to 7 hours of sleep every night. Before humans, our cells mastered tracking time. Our bodies include a clock inside each cell. The clocks in our cells are biological, not like the clocks we are used to.
Our biological clocks generate circadian rhythms and keep almost perfect time with the Earth’s 24-hour cycle of light and dark. That is why you feel energized during the day and sleepy at night. It is crucial to maintain this sleeping cycle for your overall wellness.
Sleeping helps in reducing stress, and lets you take that much-needed rest in order to recharge your body and mind.
v. Avoid or decrease your alcohol intake: Drinking excessive alcohol can lead to high blood pressure, liver disease, heart disease and cause digestive issues as well.
You can decrease your alcohol intake in the following ways:
- Keep track of your alcohol consumption and try to lessen your intake each time.
- Resist peer pressure, you can always say no politely to people that offer alcoholic beverages to you. Opt for a drink with no alcohol content in them such as mocktails,juices, etc.
- Budget your alcohol expenses and you will be shocked to see how expensive alcohol can be.
vi. Full body check-ups: Get your check-ups done on a regular basis as it can assist in identifying any health problems before they become serious. You have the best chance of receiving the proper care immediately and avoiding complications if you are diagnosed early.
You can live a longer, stress-free, and healthier life by receiving the appropriate health services, exams, and treatment. Prevention is always better than cure!
2. What Is Emotional Wellness?
Emotional wellness involves being aware of your emotions and accepting your varied emotions such as happiness, sadness, excitement, etc. It is also having the ability to successfully cope with life’s challenges and having a positive mindset.What are the benefits of Emotional wellness?
Having a strong emotional wellness can be very beneficial. It can help you make better decisions, give you confidence and make you a happier person, below are some areas where it can help:
i. Better Relationship – If you are emotionally sound then you will be capable of maintaining a healthy relationship with the people around you. People who are emotionally healthy are usually very calm, happy, and content hence making it easier for them to connect with other individuals.
ii. Better immunity – Emotionally sound people take less stress which helps in increasing immunity and reduces the chances of illnesses. According to experts, people who are emotionally healthy experience fewer negative emotions/thoughts and recover from setbacks more quickly. You will be resilient if you are emotionally stable.
iii. Increase in productivity – If you are emotionally healthy you will be able to concentrate better and become more productive at work and active during the day.
3. What Is Spiritual Wellness?
The process of integrating your ideas and values with actions that improve both you and the world around you is known as spiritual wellness. Spirituality goes beyond being religious and one can still be spiritual by being religious.
Why is Spiritual wellness important?
Spirituality promotes peace and one of the main positive outcomes of spirituality is on our mental health. Spirituality will help you understand yourself better, and gives meaning and purpose to your life.An individual who is spiritually healthy evaluates his own values and beliefs, seeks life’s deeper meanings, has a firm grasp of right and wrong, reflects and meditates, and finds pleasure in small things.
How to improve your Spiritual Wellness?
i. Mediate – It is challenging to manage your time and everyday responsibilities but making time for yourself is essential. Spend at least five to ten minutes per day on meditation and breathing exercises. You can check out Headspace’s website to start your meditation for beginners’ journey.
Meditation will help you free your mind and will strengthen your connection to your spiritual wellness.
ii. Practice Yoga – Anyone, at any level, can practice yoga. You don’t have to be a yoga professional to reap its benefits.
Regardless of age or fitness ability, you can start with yoga because it is mild compared to the rigorous exercises you do in the gym. Yoga is an Indian tradition that dates back 5,000 years. It was created as a method to synchronize the body and mind. It improves your mind and spirit as well as your body, easing the signs of stress, despair, and worry.
iii. Start Journaling – Writing can help you process your feelings, improve your awareness, and provide a safe area for you to express your feelings. Start with a gratitude and affirmation journal.
iv. Keep your phone away – Make a conscious effort to keep your phone away in the mornings to spend some time in nature. You will be shocked to see how great your day will be ahead. At night spend some quiet time before bed so that your body and mind can be trained to relax and get ready for a sound sleep.
v. Give time to your hobbies – As busy as you may be, take out some time for what you love. It could be reading, painting, cooking, etc. Making time for what you love gives you happiness and a sense of purpose in your life.
vi. Volunteer for some social work – Finding a cause that matters to you and giving back to society is another way to connect to your spirituality. Helping others makes you feel fulfilled.
In this blog, we covered the importance of wellness and talked about three important dimensions of wellness (physical, emotional, and spiritual). In the second part of the wellness blog series, we will write more about the other five dimensions of wellness.
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