As per Wikipedia – “Wellness is a state beyond absence of illness but rather aims to optimize well-being”
As per Merriam-Webster – “The quality or state of being in good health especially as an actively sought goal”
Wellness refers not only to both the physical and mental portions of who we are, but also includes a number of other considerations noted as “Wellness Dimensions”. These dimensions are:
- Social
- Emotional
- Spiritual
- Intellectual
- Physical
- Environmental
- Financial
- Occupational
Wellness can be considered a modern reference which has been gaining traction since the 1950’s but many if not all of these ideas can be dated back to ancient times, as far back as 3000 BC.
Since wellness combines many dimensions and the goal of “wellness” is basically a state of optimized health within each of these dimensions, wellness can seem like an impossible achievement. It is never possible to be perfect at a single thing, never mind being perfect at 8 things; all the time! This is a tall order. Is wellness really a possibility and why does it even matter?
Wellness is the ultimate challenge for humans. You are given many areas of focus that need attention and the odds are that while you may be naturally proficient in some areas you are certainly weaker in others. This makes for a never ending challenge. Working on becoming a better version of yourself while simultaneously focusing on 8 dimensions is the goal of wellness. Even if you are an extremely focused, talented, successful, smart, loving, generous, and understanding person; the journey never ends. Life by default will always provide challenges. The nature of wellness always requires that you are on purpose, adjusting and filled with intention.
To start working on wellness it might make sense to review the 8 dimensions and think about how they are currently relating to your life. Not an in depth review but a basic overview so you can become familiar with their existence and recognize that each dimension is impacting your life. These impacts may be immediately notable but others may initially seem irrelevant to you. Regardless of how you initially interpret their relationship to who you are, simply recognize the 8 dimensions and determine how they may be affecting your life.
Let’s briefly review each dimension:
Social Wellness – We are social creature and healthy relationships with family and friends are the goal of social wellness. This also extends beyond friends and family and ultimately extends to strangers too. We have no control over who our family is and this is by design. You get what you get with family, for better or worse. Next you have friends and with friends you have most control over who you choose to associate with. Finally we have strangers; this is basically everyone else you encounter.
Social wellness covers 3 general categories:
- Family
- Friends
- Strangers
Each category requires different levels of skill and competence but the goal in social wellness is to effectively realize love, friendship, communication and trust.
Some ways to incorporate Social Wellness in to your life:
- Try focusing on the quality of your friends instead of quantity. “More” does not equate to “Better”
- When dealing with strangers remember that choosing “Kindness” in all your encounters is a good way to cultivate stress free interactions
Emotional Wellness – You are what you feel for the majority of your day. If you are happy and are enjoying life for most of the day then you will likely be presenting this message to others around you. If however you are sad, discouraged and angry this will be the message sensed by those around you. Your emotional state is basically who you feel you are. A positive emotion is achieved by purposefully focusing on feeling well and the goal is to be in this state automatically. Practice makes perfect, so until “feeling well” is mostly an automatic response for you, simply stay on track by consistently choosing to “feel well”.
Some ways to incorporate Emotional Wellness in to your life:
- Don’t stress over your day. When anything other than a thought of “feeling well” is recognized, simply realize it and move on to another thought.
- If you are having difficulties with changing or controlling your emotional state, practice taking 10 deep breaths. Focus on the entire process of inhaling and exhaling. Take the deepest breaths possible, start by filling your lungs slowly and only stop when your chest is filled entirely with that breath; now begin to exhale. Continue to exhale slowly until your lungs are completely empty. Repeat this process for 10 breaths.
Spiritual Wellness – This can best be described as being connected to something greater than you. After observing all that surrounds you physically, (nature, stars, galaxies, and everything else in this universe) you start to entertain the strong probability that something created all of this. The goal of spiritual wellness is just noting this fact and working to know this something.
Some ways to incorporate Spiritual Wellness in to your life:
- Simply appreciate the fact that you and everything in this universe came from “somewhere” and was created by “something”
- Begin entertaining the notion that there are ways to discover and know this something. Enjoy the process of researching all possibilities, entertain each possibility you encounter. Never commit to exactness.
Intellectual Wellness – This is the pursuit of working knowledge through discovery and application. Basically continued education applied to life. Learning and applying what you are learning to become better. Becoming better at something you already know or learning something brand new. This is exercise for mind expressed by you doing and not simply memorizing. Applied function learning. The goal of Intellectual Wellness is continuous growth.
Some ways to incorporate Intellectual Wellness in to your life:
- Never stop learning. Continue to progress and discover. Use any number for the following tools:
- Audio books
- YouTube
- Library
- Traditional education
- Online training
- Continue to fine tune what you are already familiar with but also use an equal amount of energy to expose yourself to new ideas and determine if those new ideas are interesting enough to continue researching
Physical Wellness – This is respecting and taking care of your physical body. Using exercise and diet to maintain and develop you physical body. Paying attention to what you are eating and drinking and working to stay strong and healthy. Your body is your vehicle and needs to be taken care of. The goal of Physical Wellness is simply putting a concerted effort into maintain and developing your physical body.
Some ways to incorporate Physical Wellness in to your life:
- If you have not developed a routine of physical activity
or developed better eating habits, try:
- Walking for 30 minutes daily. 15 minutes in one direction then 15 minutes in the reverse direction to get back. That is all you need to do, walk. Once you develop a 30 minute habit you can either increase the amount of time or move on to something more challenging. Once you develop this basic habit, it will be easier to incorporate other physical habits. You can also use this walking time work on intellectual or spiritual wellness while you walk. Listen to audiobooks related to those topics.
- Start eating better by just eating “less”. Less sugary food. Less processed food. Better control over eating such as no late night snacks or by incorporating scheduled eating using a technique known as “intermittent fasting”. Intermittent fasting is a scheduled time period in which you consume food and will help you lose weight. This process will also help you develop better eating habits too.
Environment Wellness – This is identifying and managing your environment to where your surroundings are productive and congruent with supporting the ability to create a better version of you. You do not always have control over your environment but paying attention to the fact that noise, stress, and unnatural elements in environments are not optimal and distracting. The goal of Environmental Wellness is not only working on creating a productive environment that will help you relax and grow but also having the ability to effectively deal with stressful environments temporarily.
Some ways to incorporate Environmental Wellness in to your life:
- Just like developing better dietary and physical
wellness by creating better habits, your environment can also be improved by
developing better habits:
- Try reducing the amount of time you spend in “low energy” locations such as bars and other noisy unproductive locations
- Minimize or remove exposure to “Social Media”. “Social Media” is designed to be antagonizing. You will always crave more “friends” and “likes” and will never have enough of what you don’t really need.
- Minimize or remove exposure to “News” or “Gossip” websites. “News” by design is sensational and many times designed to serve corporate or political agenda.
- Changing your job and reducing \ removing your daily commute. If your job and commute are contributing significantly to stress then maybe it’s time to start entertaining the idea of “change”. These are big changes but if they are stressful then start to at least daydream about a batter way to work.
- If you are in a romantic relationship that is contributing significantly to your stress levels then it’s time to start daydreaming about changing that too.
Financial Wellness – Is realizing that money is not the end-all-be-all pursuit in life. Financial responsibility is learning to downsize when necessary, avoiding debt and spending \ earning money responsibly. The goal is financial balance.
Some ways to incorporate Financial Wellness in to your life:
- Do not spend more than you make
- Prioritize debt reduction. Simply stated, debt is easy to achieve and socially acceptable. Credit cards, bank loans, student debt, etc… Debt is everywhere. Where there is debt there is slavery. If you are in debt, focus to minimize then eliminate. If you are not in debt, take all precautions to steer clear.
Occupational Wellness – Is being engaged in fulfilling work. Many times we choose an occupation based on historical habit or strictly by the monetary rewards. Much of your time is spent working and if you are strictly using an occupation for money and do not truly enjoy what you are doing, suffering and stress will surely accompany you most of each day. The goal of Occupational Wellness is pursuing and enjoying what you are doing.
Some ways to incorporate Occupational Wellness in to your life:
- Most people spend the majority of their time working. Simply choose to spend your time bring fulfilled. Choose work that is fulfilling, challenging and in service of others.
- If you are debt free and are able to live on what you earn then that is half the battle. Live within your means; choose work that is fulfilling and you will have greatly increased your chances of authentically enjoying life.
Now that we have briefly reviewed each dimension, the next step would be to see if you can identify with each of the dimensions. Wellness takes all the dimensions in to account simultaneously. Wellness is not a binary result, on or off; instead, it is a continuing effort. The goal is to develop each dimension and realize that each distinct dimension is ultimately under your control. Take time to review the list and make sure you understand how each dimension has the ability to affect your life.
The single currency of your mind is thought. Each and every thought that you have, gives you the ability to choose and make choices. Each choice you make will either get you closer to a wellness goal or take you backwards a bit. Every day will offer you many opportunities to work on your wellness. Persistent perfection should not be the goal, simply moving forward and by making better choices one choice at a time should be your goal. Once you get in to a habit of making better choices you will be able to move forward without major struggle.
Thinking about 8 dimensions in real time, every day, forever may seem daunting so let’s review a straight forward way to start developing a better habit of wellness.
Beginner process:
- Simply start paying attention to each thought you have
- Do not attempt to pay attention to every thought for the entire day, start by taking a few minute efforts daily to focus on your current thought (Maybe 5 minute sessions)
- When you start to realize and focus on your thought, understand that you just put that thought there, it may seem like it came from nowhere, but you are in fact the one responsible for that thought
- Simply focus on and then acknowledge that current thought, know that you put that thought there, let go of the thought and prepare for the next thought
- If you do not believe you are creating your thoughts then simply take a second to think of a “cat”, now think of a “dog” and repeat the process. You are in fact thinking of a cat and then a dog. Now trust that you are creating your thoughts and move on…
- Practice observing your thoughts. Every time you observe a thought, realize what that thought is. Now realize you put that thought there. Lastly, let that thought go and move on to the next thought
Intermediate process:
- Simply start paying attention to each thought you have
- Do not attempt to pay attention to every thought for the entire day, start by taking a few minute efforts daily to focus on your current thought (Maybe 5 minute sessions)
- Recognize that the current thought. First realize you created that thought. Now spend a moment and compare that thought
against each of the 8 dimensions of wellness:
- Social Wellness
- Emotional Wellness
- Spiritual Wellness
- Intellectual Wellness
- Physical Wellness
- Environmental Wellness
- Financial Wellness
- Occupational Wellness
- Just decide if that thought is related to any of the 8 dimensions of wellness. If the thought is related to any of the dimensions, determine if it is beneficial or detrimental
Once you develop the habit of taking responsibility for each of your thoughts and then determining how this thought relates to wellness, you can finally work on consciously making better choices and developing wellness full time on purpose.
We will review “advanced options” in a future article. It is important to understand that wellness is journey and never ends. The way we understand process and progress with wellness is import because wellness is a life skill that ensures responsible life fulfillment.