All About Wellness

Nov 1

We hear about wellness all the time and often get the impression that it’s important – like it’s something we should care about.

Health & wellness often go together in conversation, and rightfully so. Each and every one of us should be equipped with the knowledge, support, and resources necessary to live a healthy life.

The World Health Organization made a powerful statement about the importance of promoting health as inclusive and accessible:

“The enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health is one of the fundamental rights of every human being without distinction of race, religion, political belief, economic or social condition”

Phew! A fundamental right!

Sounds great in theory, but when it comes down to it, many of us experience barriers to actively pursuing a healthy lifestyle. Expensive gym memberships, lack of time to make home cooked meals, common life stressors that can’t be avoided.

We can control some of those barriers, but not all of them.

I’m getting ahead of myself. Before we jump into the how, lets talk about the what. Is wellness the same as health? Does wellness mean we are healthy and fit? That we eat our greens and lift our weights?

What exactly is wellness, why is it so important, and how do we get started in the right direction?

Lets start by looking at the difference between wellness and health. Health can often be portrayed as the absence of illness, however a more well-rounded definition is:

“Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.”

I love that. I love that health is about so much more than just not being sick. It’s a state of well-being for our mind and body.

Wellness also has physical, mental, and social components. The difference is that health is a state of being while wellness is an active process. In fact, The Global Wellness Institute defines wellness as the active pursuit of activities, choices and lifestyles that lead to a state of holistic health.

In other words, health is how you are, while wellness is what you do.

And wellness goes way beyond the 3 areas mentioned above! Different models of wellness can include up to 12 different dimensions, showing that wellness is about so much more than just achieving physical health.

Eight of those dimensions include:

Physical: Includes activities related to exercise, sleep, nutrition, and awareness of stressors in order to care for you body and to be healthy throughout life
Spiritual: Searching for meaning or purpose in life, either alone or within a community
Environmental: Interacting with our environment, including homes, communities, work, and nature, on both a local and global level, while understanding how those environments effect our health and demonstrating a commitment to a healthy planet
Emotional: Being aware of and managing our feelings, values, and attitudes, while understanding the feelings of others
Intellectual: Maintaining curiosity and acquiring, sharing, and using knowledge to contribute to society and for personal growth
Occupational: Gaining personal fulfilment and life enrichment from work that aligns with your goals, values, and lifestyle, encompasses one’s ability to supply skills to meet community’s needs in a personally meaningful way
Social: Connecting with, engaging with, and caring about other people, our communities, and nature
Financial: Respecting that each person’s financial needs, values, and circumstances are unique and being able to manage your own resources to live within your means

It might feel a bit overwhelming to think about all of these dimensions.

Where the heck are we supposed to start!?

How do we possibly focus on each and every dimension of wellness when we are also trying to stay afloat managing our work, family, and social lives, all while staying sane and trying to find a bit of enjoyment when we can?

My suggestion is to start by thinking of what you’re already doing, and give yourself some major credit.

Maybe you already…

do your best to go to sleep at the same time every night
feel confident with managing your monthly budget
have an easy time creating connections within your community
absolutely love your job
make sure to spend at least five minutes outside every day
have a regular spiritual or religious practice
are in touch with your feelings and emotions
constantly read articles or books

Once you have an idea of where you’re at, consider taking making 1-3 goals for yourself, and make a plan for how to accomplish them over the next 4-6 weeks.

Remember, consistency is key. And it might take some time before you get the hang of it. Behaviour change doesn’t happen over night.

When you reflect back on your first few weeks trying to implement a change and find that you weren’t as consistent with your goal as you’d like, that’s totally ok! Try to:

- Give yourself credit for anything you were able to implement, no matter how small it might seem

- Consider what potential barriers might have been to following through, such as lack of time, motivation, or support

- Make a plan for what you’d like to do differently, whether that means you address the barriers you can control or adjust your goals around those you cannot

When you have consistently implemented a new wellness habit, whether that’s making sure to get at least one serving of veggies each day, getting out for a run two days each week, putting aside a percentage of each pay check into a savings account, or reading ten pages of a book or article every day, start to ask yourself if there’s anything else you’d like to implement, and give that a go while staying consistent with the changes you’ve already made!

But, why bother? Because when we take care of ourselves and give each dimension of our life the attention it deserves, we can find ourselves feeling more confident, open-minded, supported, and satisfied.

And by the way – enjoying a piece of chocolate cake, letting yourself snooze through your alarms on the weekend, and breezing through a guilt-free Netflix binge with a bottle of wine can also be part of your wellness journey.