“Be healthier” is a common New Year’s Resolution, and almost everyone makes some effort to achieve and maintain good health. For many, this simply means not being sick. But being healthy goes beyond feeling good and involves actively talking steps to reduce the risk of disease and promote wellbeing. This is why not smoking, eating well, and being active are so important—these habits can improve your health now and help you maintain good health as you age.
But good physical health is only part of being truly “healthy.” This is the topic of my Health & Fitness column in the Aiken Standard this week.
The World Health Organization defines health as a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being, and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity. This is consistent with concept of wellness that is not limited to physical health, exercise, and nutrition and integrates physical, mental, and spiritual well-being. While wellness models vary, they almost all include a range of components associated with living a good life. The National Wellness Institute presents a concept of wellness that includes six dimensions that act and interact to contribute to quality of life. They include:
Social Wellness is the ability to relate to and connect with other people in our world. Our ability to positively interact with people and establish and maintain positive relationships with family, friends and co-workers contributes to our social wellness.
Emotional Wellness is the ability to understand ourselves and cope with the challenges life can bring. The ability to cope with stress and acknowledge and share feelings of anger, fear, sadness or stress; hope, love, joy and happiness in a productive manner contributes to emotional wellness.
Spiritual Wellness is the ability to establish peace and harmony in our lives. It includes the ability to link personal values and actions and to realize a common purpose.
Intellectual Wellness is the ability to open our minds to new ideas and experiences that can be applied to personal decisions, group interaction and community betterment. Engaging in creative and stimulating mental activities to expand your knowledge and use information effectively desire to learn new concepts, improve skills and seek challenges in pursuit of lifelong learning are characteristics of intellectual wellness.
Occupational Wellness is the ability to get personal fulfillment from our jobs or our chosen career fields while still maintaining balance in our lives. Our desire to contribute in our careers to make a positive impact on the organizations we work in and to society as a whole leads to Occupational Wellness..
Physical Wellness is the ability to maintain a healthy quality of life that allows us to get through our daily activities without undue fatigue or physical stress. Adopting healthful habits while avoiding negative habits will lead to optimal physical wellness.
Other models also include additional components of wellness, including:
Environmental Wellness is the ability to recognize how your behavior impacts your surroundings, be it your home, community, and planet, how the physical world impacts you, and how to you can make a positive impact on the quality of our environment.
Financial Wellness includes managing your money effectively, living within your means, and making wise financial decisions now and for the future.
Obviously, these are all important for achieving health and wellness. Unfortunately, many programs which intend to promote health or wellness actually only prevent or treat disease. As you make your New Year’s Resolutions, be mindful that wellness is an active process through which we become aware of, and make choices toward, a more vibrant and successful life and take steps to look beyond fitness and nutrition to embrace wellness.
Dr Parr Says... 