Health and Wellness

The quality of our environment has a direct effect on our personal wellness. According to Melnyk (2019) environmental wellness means recognising the responsibility to preserve, protect, and improve the environment and appreciating our connection to nature. To enjoy environmental wellness we require clean air, pure water, quality food, adequate shelter, satisfactory living and working conditions, personal safety, and healthy relationships.

According to the University of Wisconsin (n.d.), occupational wellness is a sense of satisfaction with your choice of work. An occupational wellness goal might include finding meaningful and financially rewarding work. In addition, finding work that fits with your values, interests, and skills can help maintain occupational wellness.

Financial wellness can be defined in a variety of ways. Because money is implicated as a major stressor in society, it plays a major role in influencing many individuals’ health and well-being. According to Junco (2019), financial wellness isn’t about how much money you make; it’s about money management, your attitude towards your financial status and your relationship with your money.

Intellectual wellness refers to being open to new ideas and experiences and the desire to increase understanding, improve skills, and continually challenge yourself. Typically, people think of intellectual wellness as academic knowledge, but it also entails creativity, general knowledge, and common sense. Academics, a professional career, cultural involvement, and hobbies can all help to develop this aspect of wellness.

There are many components to our overall health and well-being, including physical, mental and emotional. However, one important aspect that can often be overlooked is spiritual wellness. The general definition of spiritual wellness is the search for your life’s meaning and purpose, as well as striving for consistency in your values and actions. A spiritually healthy person has a clear purpose in life and is able to reflect on the meaning of events. They also have clearly defined ideas of right and wrong and are able to act accordingly. Some people follow specific religious practices, while others may pursue a general sense of harmony and self-awareness.

If you want to pursue wellness in every aspect of your life, you cannot neglect social wellness. Social wellness influences almost every area of your being from your physical health to your emotional stability, and it is essential in determining the quality of your general well-being.

According to the American Academy of Family Physicians (2020), the term emotional wellness refers to an awareness, understanding, and acceptance of our emotions, and our ability to manage them effectively through challenges and change. Emotional wellness is an important part of overall health. People who are emotionally healthy are in control of their thoughts, feelings, and are able to cope with life’s challenges. They can keep problems in perspective and bounce back from setbacks. They feel good about themselves and have good relationships. Having good emotional health is a fundamental aspect of fostering resilience, self-awareness, and overall contentment.

Simply put, physical wellness refers to the state of our body. Physical wellness is the ability to maintain a healthy quality of life that allows us to get the most out of our daily activities without undue fatigue or physical stress. It includes a good balance between the aspects of not only exercise and nutrition, but also hygiene, care of sickness, sleep, safe sex, and more. The University of Delaware states that physical wellness enables a person to feel empowered to be responsible for one’s personal health, identify areas for realistic improvement and celebrate areas of success.

Around the world, there is a growing problem of chronic, lifestyle-related diseases. These are diseases that are, effectively, caused by the way that we live our lives. Most, if not all of them, are associated with not looking after our bodies. Many of these diseases are linked to being overweight and not getting enough exercise or putting the wrong substances into our bodies.