
Health & Wellness
Health and Wellness: The Exploration of a Balanced Lifestyle
Health and wellness is a broad topic that relates to the choices that we make each and every day and how they translate to better outcomes in health. For most adults, wellness can be an ever-changing process depending on life events, situations, as well as career goals. While it is reasonable to expect that wellness just happens naturally, there are some life choices that need to occur in a way to nourish your health, vitality, longevity, life expectancy, and much more. Consider the information below a guideline into wellness along with some current data to boost your knowledge on what proper wellness can do for your health.
You hear quite a bit about wellness in the news on a regular basis, at your yearly doctor’s visit, and virtually anywhere that is encouraging you to be healthy. However, when it comes to wellness, what does it mean to be truly well? Some could argue that proper wellness is defined as being healthy, or without disease, but truthfully, most adults have some degree of illness in one way or another. With that said, can you truly have proper wellness even though you are ill?
Wellness is best defined with eight pillars describing the overall goal to good health, longevity, and happiness. While it is not a written rule that you must follow the eight pillars of wellness, they do allow for guidance towards a life balance. The eight pillars of wellness can be described in short as having the balance of emotional, environmental, financial, intellectual, occupational, physical, social, and spiritual wellness.1 With a balance between these main elements within your life, good stability should exist, bringing physical, mental, and spiritual wellness together.
One common question when it comes to physical activity is, “How much should I work out?” The answer to this is multi-factorial, but fortunately, there is a general guideline to which each and every adult should abide. For general health and to boost certain elements in the wellness pillar, adults should aim to be physically active every day for at least 30 minutes. When that is considered, 30 minutes every day is not very much, which suggests that optimal health is within reason. For weight loss, adults should aim for at least 60 minutes every day of physical activity and if possible, consider a formal exercise routine. So how can adults add more activity into everyday life, in order to boost overall wellness? Consider the quick tips below:
Adding more physical activity to your daily life is one of the simplest ways to boost physical wellness, which plays a role in the remaining seven pillars. However, adding physical activity to your daily life may not be the only way to boost wellness. One element in health and wellness that is inevitable is your diet. Your diet can support your overall wellness, add nutrients to aid body function, as well as boost happiness. Let’s take a closer look at what role diet, mostly your food habits, plays in wellness.
If your worksite has multiple floors then you can make use of this by walking the stairs (up) a few times a day. It does not take much to get the heart rate amped up when walking up a flight of stairs so consider this a couple times per day if you can spare a few minutes.
One of the simplest ways to take the immediate stress away is to take yourself in a place where you can sit and allow your body and mind to forget what is stressing you in the first place. If you have an office or cubicle, this is perfect. If this does not pertain to you then you may need to