What Is “Wellness?”

Wellness is a word being thrown around a lot these days. What does it mean to you? In my opinion it means taking care of your body and your health (those kinda go together ya know?) to either maintain or improve your current condition.

According to Dr. Bill Hettler, Co-founder and President of the Board of Directors of the National Wellness Institute, there are SIX dimensions of wellness. http://c.ymcdn.com/sites/www.nationalwellness.org/resource/resmgr/docs/sixdimensionsfactsheet.pdf

SOCIAL – Contributing to society, making an impact on your community and the environment around you. As you focus on your well-being, you will learn more about yourself and how you can take an active role in impacting our world!

OCCUPATIONAL – Choose a career that aligns with your values, interests, beliefs and fits your personality. Occupational wellness is considered to be your attitude toward your “work,” whatever that might be. As you grow toward occupational happiness, you will discover your special gifts, skills and talents that will help you develop a meaningful, rewarding career.

SPIRITUAL – Each individual will have a search for deeper meaning and purpose to his or her human existence. What the outcome of this is, will be totally up to you and your internal thoughts and feelings as you travel life’s beautiful journey. Seeking peaceful harmony between internal personal feelings/emotions and what is occurring in your life will develop your spirituality.

PHYSICAL – We are in need of regular physical activity. Developing your physical well-being will include educating yourself about diet and exercise. Have you ever heard people say “it’s 80% diet and 20% exercise? (or some ratio similar?) Well, I think that is pretty accurate!

        NUTRITION

What did you eat today? Did you nourish your body with a colorful plate of fruits and veggies? Did you get all the protein and carbs you needed? What about those healthy fats? I’m far from a nutrition expert, but I highly recommend meeting up with one if you haven’t already and seeing if you can get on a good diet plan that suits you, your body and your lifestyle.

I met a girl once at a party in NYC who is super awesome and happens to have a fun nutrition blog I like to follow… I linked it here! http://jenniefagen.com

        EXERCISE

What do you do for exercise? Do you get appropriate amounts of cardio? Do you do any weight training? Do you use the right amount of weight and do the right amount of repetitions and sets?

General health guidelines (from the American College of Sports Medicine) recommend

• 5 days a week of 30 minutes of cardiovascular exercise (which can include brisk walking, jogging, running, biking… anything that gets that heart rate up basically) and the 30 minutes can be broken down into 3 sets of 10 or done all at one time, but less than 10 minutes at a time doesn’t count!
• 2-3 days a week of resistance training which should include 2-4 sets of 8-12 repetitions per set with 2-3 minutes of rest between sets. Deciding on what weight to use is a little more complicated, as it will be different for everyone. If you struggle to get to 8 repetitions, go with a lighter weight, if 12 repetitions is easy, pick a slightly heavier weight. ** If you are new to weight training, please get a good personal trainer or physical therapist to help you pick the right exercises and weight for you as well as make sure your form is perfect!
• Stretching! Stretch each major muscle group 4 times, holding all stretches for 30-90 seconds. Participating in a stretching routine that is about 10 minutes or more 2-3 times a week should be good!

Intellectual – It is important to stretch and challenge our minds by expanding our knowledge and skills.  This will allow us to discover what gifts we have and our potential to positively impacting others. Never stop learning!

Emotional – The way we feel about ourselves should be positive and enthusiastic! We should be in touch with our own feelings and able to manage them. This will allow us to make personal choices/decisions for our lives and create and maintain satisfying relationships with others.

As you can tell, the “physical” aspect of wellness is obviously my area of expertise… but I wanted to write a blog post about all of these aspects of wellness just to bring your attention to them. In my opinion it is important to keep all of these dimensions in our minds as we journey through life.

One thing I have really been focusing on lately is the idea of aligning these dimensions so they can work together. If I pay attention to my emotions, educate myself on my goals and how I can achieve them, I am able to make decisions for my life that align with my values/beliefs and then I am so much happier! I focus a lot of my time and energy on the physical aspect of wellness, because it is my job and I love it! But it is very important to incorporate ALL of the areas of wellness!

Love to all! xoxo – Bre