Which association pops up in your mind when you hear the word wellness? I asked some people this question and most of them mentioned their physical condition. This is certainly an important aspect of wellness, but not the only one. In my opinion there are five aspects of wellness which, if they are taken good care of, can contribute to your quality of life.
1. Physical wellness
Maintain a healthy quality of life that allows us to get through our daily activities without undue fatigue or physical stress.
2. Social wellness
Relate to and connect with other people and establish and maintain positive relationships with them.
3. Emotional wellness
Understand ourselves and cope with the challenges life can bring.
4. Intellectual wellness
Open our minds to new ideas and experiences that can be applied to personal decisions, group interaction and community betterment.
5. Spiritual wellness
Establish peace and harmony in our lives by developing congruency between values and actions.
When I go through the five aspects, I realize that for me it’s not so easy to continuously pay attention to all of them. I do not always live consciously enough to do so. I was wondering what could help to keep all the aspects on my radar. I came up with the idea of a monthly wellness checklist. This would help me become aware of the aspects I am neglecting and give me the possibility to consciously pay more attention to those aspects. That could prevent me from getting out of balance (instead of cleaning my mess after I have been neglecting one aspect for too long). Why not start now?
1. Physical wellness
+ went for one hour runs every other day
+ used my bicycle whenever I could to go to appointments
+ ate fruit in the morning and vegetables in the evening
– stayed up too long while I had to get up early
2. Social wellness
+ spent several evenings with friends and family in a good atmosphere
– worked on my own at home too often
3. Emotional wellness
+ kept a journal about my thoughts and feelings
– kept going in some situations while neglecting my feelings
4. Intellectual wellness
+ read two books, one about change communication and one about past reality integration
+ had inspiring conversations with several persons
5. Spiritual wellness
– skipped meditation in the morning a lot of times
– took little time to ponder on what I was doing
As you can read I am doing ok (more + than -), but there is room for improvement. Sometimes my bad habits get in the way, especially when I don’t feel my best self. I wrote about a way to handle them in Sep ’15’s edition of ‘The Professionals’ of September. I think consciousness is the key factor and monthly check ups can raise this. So if you want to improve the quality of your life start doing them, because you deserve wellness in your life.