The Seven dimensions of Wellness
Immunity
Living under constant stress, even low-grade, that continues day in and out, causes the body to produce too much cortisol, the stress hormone. Over time, elevated cortisol lowers your resistance to fighting off infection and contributes to poor sleep and higher blood pressure.
Environmental Wellness
Environmental wellness inspires us to live a lifestyle that is respectful of our surroundings. This realm encourages us to live in harmony with the Earth by taking action to protect it. Environmental well-being promotes interaction with nature and your personal environment.
- Being aware of the limits of the earth’s natural resources
- Conserving energy (i.e. shutting off unused lights)
- Recycling paper, cans, and glass as much as possible
- Enjoying and appreciating time outside in natural settings
- Not polluting the air, water or earth
- Creating home and work environments that are supportive and nurturing
Intellectual Wellness
Intellectual wellness refers to active participation in scholastic, cultural, and community activities.
- Improve Study Skills
- Take notes while you read, while in class, and focus on more than what is written on the board
- Form a study group session with other people in your class
- Study in a quiet environment that will not distract you
- Find innovative ways to study that work for you
- Improve Time Management
- Make a “To-Do” list that allows you to cross off completed tasks as you go, and prioritize your tasks.
- Learn to say no to social activities sometimes – remember what is important to get done
- Multi-task within your limits
- Remove Objectivity
- Learn there is more than one way to do something
- There isn’t always a “right” answer, but sometimes multiple
- Stay open-minded to new ideas, insights, thoughts, expressions, and values
- Improve Critical Thinking
- Be actively engaged in conversation, readings, and classrooms – think about what is happening
- Ask questions to yourself or others as you reflect
- Challenge the norm, don’t take an answer for what it is without agreeing upon it yourself
- Find patterns and connections to examples that relate to your life
- Keep your brain active, thinking, and questioning.
Physical Wellness
Healthy physical health habits can help decrease your stress, lower your risk of disease, and increase your energy.
- Increase your daily activity.
- You might choose the stairs instead of elevators.
- Always park your car a bit far so you can enjoy few minutes walking to your office.
- It might be useful, to have some walk with your colleagues, discussing business issues, or even social discussion.
- You can even watch your favorite TV programs while using the treadmill.
- Keep your body Healthy
- Maintain healthy weight, you always can consult a dietitian, or nutrition consultant to get the proper advise.
- Stay active all over the week, you can start by aiming at least 150 minutes at least weekly.
- Wear comfortable well-fitting shoes.
- Eat well balanced diet especially the vitamins and mineral that will support your immunity like Vit. C, Vit. D, Zinc and Selenium.
- Avoid lifting heavy weight, and if necessary, bend your knees and keep your back straight.
- Achieve healthy weight.
- Eat smaller portion enriched with mix of vegetables and fruits.
- Choose whole grain and avoid fats and oil, with limited amount of sugar.
- Stick to the activities you like, 10 minutes several times a day.
- Track your achievement and be realistic with your goal of losing weight.
- Careful with your metabolism.
- Commit yourself to healthy life style.
- Minimize snacks and junk food.
- Drink plenty of water.
- Get enough sleep.
- Take stairs instead of elevator.
- Avoid tobacco and alcohol to eliminate the harmful effect on your body.
Social Wellness
Since we are born, we are surrounded with people, interaction and relationship are very helpful is relieving the stress, and maintain healthy social wellness.
- Make connections.
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- Link to others is having positive powerful effect on our life.
- All kind of social links will affect positively on our whole biological system
- Get involved in community services.
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- Take care of your self while taking care of the others.
- Make a checklist in case you are helping other people.
- Have a break at least 10 minutes every day by keeping up with your hobbies and favorite activities.
- Get active within your community (Friends, Co-workers, family)
- Give your family members the priorities, and don’t let the work take you away from spending time with your family and friends.
- Always brainstorm solution with your co-workers.
- Minimize spending time on your mobile, and spare more time for your family and friends.
- Build healthy meaningful relationships.
- Share your issues honestly with others, and ask what you need from them straight.
- Don’t judge others and avoid negative criticism.
- Compromise and try meet at the middle way with an agreement to satisfy everyone.
- Avoid negative abusive people.
Emotional Wellness
Stress could be devastating for both emotional and physical wellness, for some individuals workout could relieve the stress, for others might be music or mediation, you can always seek for a proper stress relieve through a specialist.
- Seek Balance.
- Set realistic goals & priorities, and tackle what needed to be done first.
- Overwhelming yourself will surely compromise your productivity.
- Reserve spare time for your own needs.
- Stay positive
- Avoid negativity, whenever you feel it’s happening redirect yourself to positive part of the story.
- As much as you can surround yourself with positive people and avoid negative ones “either people or situations” stay away from the negative influence.
- Accept mistakes.
- Believe none is perfect and we all do mistakes.
- Accept and move on.
- The quicker you can address the mistake the quicker you can correct it.
- Be sure this will come to an end too.
- All the hardens, pumps, problems, will come to an end and shall be solved.
- Try not to dwell down on the bad sides, and always look at the bright side.
- Accept support.
- Always look for someone you trust to support.
- Talk to someone.
- Get things off your chest by talking to someone.
Occupational Wellness
Is the ability to achieve a balance between work and leisure in a way that promotes health, a sense of personal satisfaction and is (for most people) financially rewarding.
- An occupational wellness goal might include finding work that is meaningful and financially rewarding.
- Finding work that fits with your values, interests, and skills can help maintain occupational wellness.
- Consider your office culture and determine how supported you feel; if you discover you feel a lack of support, seek out support from others close to you and be sure to engage in recreational activities that can help balance out work stress.
Financial Wellness
Financial wellness is a feeling of satisfaction about your financial situation.
- Finances are a common stress or for people, so being able to minimize worry about this aspect of your life can enhance your overall wellness.
- Options for managing financial wellness include:
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- Having a household budget,
- Starting a savings account and adding to it every month even if it is just a small amount,
- Saving some of your income in an emergency account,
- Cutting back or limiting unnecessary expenses,
- Avoiding credit card debt,
- Donating to a meaningful charity,
- Cooking your own meals instead of dining out
Try tracking your spending for a month to see where your money is going and set goals based on what you find.