Now, more than ever, it’s important to aspire for total wellness. If there’s something we’ve all learned from the past year when we had to contend with a life-threatening pandemic, it’s how we cannot neglect ourselves. We can only look after the welfare of others if we have thoroughly taken care of our own needs.
And it’s not enough that you prioritize certain aspects of your life while letting other aspects take a back seat. For the achievement of total wellness, all of its components must be catered to simultaneously. Here are those components.
Physical
Ideally, you’re working with a wellness center to identify the best ways to boost your physical health. The approaches common to this goal include the introduction of a healthy diet plan to your routine. Remember that everything you put inside your body directly affects the state of your organs and systems.
A healthy diet must be matched with an active lifestyle. Exercise regularly. If you can, avoid vices such as smoking and drinking.
Social
As the adage goes, no man is an island. You cannot claim to have total wellness if you are isolated from meaningful connections. These connections can come from your family, colleagues, neighbors, and even online friends.
Your relationships make up your support system. And you cannot go through life without it. No matter how tough you think you are, you need a little help from a friend from time to time. So do not shy away from reaching out to people you hold dear.
Emotional
This is also called mental wellness. You need to ensure that no obstacle is too great for your mental fortitude. And such requires training. No, you do not need to actively seek out traumatic experiences to buff up your mental and emotional defenses. What you need is to learn how to deal with the challenges life throws your way.
We all go through obstacles. Recalibrate your perspective to allow these obstacles to turn into constructive as opposed to destructive experiences.
Spiritual
You cannot achieve mental wellness without spiritual wellness and vice versa. The latter begins with you finding your center. Or that place in your heart that never fails to reward you with a sense of peace and harmony.
There are ways to improve your spiritual wellness. Try yoga if you’re flexible enough. Or meditate every morning before you start the day.
Environmental
This relates to your relationship with your surroundings, especially Mother Nature. Ideally, you know what’s happening to our planet. Educate yourself about global warming. Your knowledge should empower you to make informed lifestyle decisions that somehow limit your contribution to our world’s most pressing problem. It should not turn you into a defeatist.
If you actively participate in our collective fight against global warming, you’ll be less susceptible to feeling helpless and hopeless. So make it a point to reduce your carbon footprint.
Occupational
You need a career. Not a job. The latter offers no growth. The former allows you to exhaust your potentials and direct you in the best possible direction in your professional life. Ideally, your career pays enough to allow you to live a decent life and save for the future.
Plus, at work, you need to be surrounded by people who are just as enthusiastic and passionate about their job as you are. That way, you will be less prone to the risk of burnout.
Intellectual
You need to allow your intellect to mature. This is done by continually educating yourself. Read books about subjects that may not necessarily be within your sphere of competencies. Explore ideas that you know little about. The key is to keep your mind as active as possible. You do not want your brain to stagnate. While it’s impossible to know everything there is to learn under the sun, at least make an effort to accumulate knowledge if only for brain exercise.
As things slowly go back to the old normal, you must be ready in more ways than one. You should be in tiptop shape physically. You need to be emotionally and spiritually at peace. You need to be attuned to your surroundings and know how you can best situate your existence on an increasingly distressed planet.
You require activities that foster professional and intellectual growth. And you need a robust and consistent support system to help you stay levelheaded. These needs feed into each other. They cannot be approached separately. If you want genuine total wellness, let these priorities guide the choices you make every single day.
