What is “wellness” and how important is it to your health? Wellness is the active process of making choices toward a healthy and fulfilling life. Most people are already doing it without knowing.
Wellness can be as simple as choosing the right nutritious thing to eat. It can be the active choice of getting a good night’s rest. Wellness is also about being social and fulfilling relationships.
Over 70% of Non Communicable Diseases are directly related to lifestyle and diet. A change in a person’s daily habits can have a great effect on a person’s mental and physical health. The choices we make directly impacts everything from longevity, to happiness, to memory.
Here are 4 things you can actively do to improve your wellness.
A Harvard research claims that we spend 46.9% of our waking hours with a wandering mind, thinking about something other than what we are doing. Because we are so unfocused, it makes us unhappy.
Something that can be adopted to bring back our focus and help our overall mental health is a technique called Mindfulness. Mindfulness, as well as mindfulness meditation, is about bringing one’s attention to focus on the present moment. Mindfulness meditation can be done anywhere in a few short minutes or in longer sessions.
Practicing mindfulness has been a proven technique in dealing with stress, anxiety and depression.
Many people may not realise this, but a healthy diet is just as good for the mind as it is for the body. It’s more than just vitamins and minerals and eating more vegetables. To maintain a healthy diet, you also need to make sure you stay hydrated by drinking plenty of water. Probiotics, such as those found in yoghurt, and nutrients found in leafy greens, as also key player in keeping a healthy gut and maintaining your digestive system. A healthy gut can do more than make you fit, it helps with skin, hair and can even elevate mood.
Exercise is important. Every health professional will tell you that it’s good for you – and they’re right. Doing adequate exercise gets your blood pumping. It’s been shown that movement increases endorphins, reduces stress hormones and reduces cognitive decline. Exercise can make you feel good.
This doesn’t mean you have to immediately join a gym and start intense workouts. Small steps to increase activity can be done to build up your health. A small walk in a nearby park or around the block is always a great start, or even some gentle yoga. Invite a friend and double it up as a social activity too.
It’s well known that being socially isolated can make you feel low or depressed – but did you know it can also be bad for your physical health? People who are isolated from their loved ones, for any reason from distance to being emotionally cut-off, have 4-6 times the change of dying prematurely.
For increasing your social wellness, the key is to be proactive with those in your life. This is not only about actively spending more time with the people who love, but also that the relationships you keep are not toxic or detrimental to your health. You should enjoy and want to spend time with these people, not feel obligated or negative when you do.
Wellness is about “whole health” – it looks at all the different parts of your life and encourages you make changes to create long term improvements. Wellness encourages you to evaluate your eating and exercise while also balancing your career, family and relationships.
What changes can you make to improve your wellness?
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