What's all the fuss about Wellness?
- Jan 19, 2024
- 11 min read
Revisited 19.01.2024
An in-depth look, with a personal perspective.
The Great Myth | Exercise - should bring us joy | Nutrition - ought to be nice | Sleep - make it restful | Minding your Mindfulness | Minding our Manners | Incremental Change | About Mental Health | POV | Bliss not wellness
This post is my personal experience, viewpoint, and researched content. Please do find your own, if you don't agree with my view that's absolutely fine, we can still be friends. Lori Wood Williams.
What is Wellness?
Wellness has traditionally been considered to have a healthy mind and body. Coping with the expectations and demands of modern living has in recent years been at its toughest for most Britons and our mental health services are in overload. The World Health Organisation says that health is “a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.” How is this even possible when we are bombarded with content and visuals that appear to show everyone else doing better than us?
Alternative medicine, suggests there are eight mutually interdependent dimensions of wellness: physical, intellectual, emotional, social, spiritual, vocational, financial, and environmental. Attention must be given to all the dimensions, as neglect of any one over time will adversely affect others, and ultimately one’s health, well-being, and quality of life. They do not, however, have to be equally balanced. We should aim, instead, to strive for a “personal harmony” that feels most authentic to us. We naturally have our priorities, approaches, and aspirations, including our views of what it means to live life fully. That's easy to say but much harder to do!
Looking at key areas of our lifestyle whichever definition we use, enables us to consider how we can maintain and improve our overall wellness. The WHO's recommendation of social connectedness, exercise, nutrition, sleep, and mindfulness with each one having an impact on your physical and mental health is the one we are looking at in this post we will look at others in the future. Some areas of wellness leak into others, some are within our control, others are not many are variable through time and circumstances. This site however exists to help you find your bliss, the sweet spot of wellness, where you have the right amount of work, the best headspace, challenges, rest, pleasure, joy, healthy connections to others, and an understanding of where you fit into your world and how you would like to improve it. Working on the principle that what you focus on you are much more likely to achieve, over the coming weeks we'll look in detail at how we can improve all of these things and we'll encourage you to share your stories of the things you've overcome and the things which bring you bliss so that others might find what you have or learn from what you are seeking - together.
Bliss, not wellness
Wellness as we've discussed has a different meaning depending on which definition you use and your viewpoint. Bliss is created in moments and whilst the cause will be different the experience is understood to be something elevated from the norm. Our aim on this site and our partner site Business Bliss is to help you create as many moments of bliss as possible and to provide the environment for bliss to occur we must seek wellness.
The Great Myth
Social Media is not generally social connectedness
When spend our days or evenings scrolling through the "specially selected" choices that our favourite social platform decided that we must see, - liking, commenting, etc., we are less connected than we realise. A good number of posts are artificially created using AI, they are curated by people who are paid to find what you will like. That's why we can often feel sad, we stay there for too long whilst attempting to find something meaningful to us. We generally know very little about the creator's reality and our interactions are not a deep connection. Curated content is an illusion at worst and a frame at best. Influencers seek to get us to buy the products they often get paid to offer us, beauty is often airbrushed and the smiles hide away the pain.
Meanwhile, we all continue to perpetuate our brand of illusion whilst the platforms get richer and our mental health and productivity are poorer for the experience. We do not build deep connections here, that's really why social platforms have chat and groups so that we can connect on a deeper level. Sadly these are open to scammers, abuse, and just plain neglect. When used properly they can be good - not sufficient for deep connection building but helpful nonetheless. Some apps tell us to take a break from social media - by doing an activity on the app. Sounds like social media to me! I'm not saying that we don't get pleasure from social but with only a minority of our communication cues being verbal and the visuals selected for us it's hard to find something genuine and lasting, we are left needing more. This can lead us to spend more time on social, perhaps try a new platform, searching for that elusive connection, because that's the easiest and perhaps only option available to us at the time.
And this site? Yes, Social Media too! We know it, and we intend to change it, to evolve into something more, to be a truly socially connected space to find bliss in the real world. We'll talk about this often in future posts, but rest assured this is a place to dip in, enjoy, and go do something else preferably with others.
Exercise - should bring us joy
I gave up my gym membership years ago following a permanent knee injury which also prevented me from running, cycling, and dancing. I don't ride and I don't live a sensible distance from a decent swimming pool. What I do have is two rambunctious Labradors, a 1930s, house where something always needs painting or fixing, and a large garden. As well as the obvious exercise, I get an enormous sense of completion and better self-worth from the challenges I set and face. My negative experience became something I truly love. Successful outcome for the work or not, to quote Alun Rogers from Stoke Staffs LEP I never fail I either succeed or I learn something. If you aren't sure yet what physical activities bring you joy, I highly recommend finding out, working with what you have, and trying new things. NEVER go to the gym etc. because you should, if that's your only reason then look for something better.
Nutrition - ought to be nice
I've been overweight most of my adult life, but I am now fitter and more active than I've ever been. The digital age we live in means my watch tells me how many calories I've burned at a glance, I log what I've eaten in my favourite app, knowing immediately that the headache or dip I'm experiencing is because I'm running on fumes. This information is stored so I can go back and see what worked in the past, and I can set timers so that I never miss a meal. This has been a game-changer for me.
Another problem area can be cooking. I love to cook, experiment, and eat tasty food. All the "you must not" and complexities of depressing diets failed me. Sure I had some immediate success but always put the weight back on. I used to buy too much food and I got fed up trying to work out how many calories I'd consumed. We do Hello Fresh and other food delivery services now instead of the usual shop. Dinner is a delightfully healthy, no-brainer experience. I can settle into cooking by just following the recipe which also improves my mindfulness. We eat less meat, have less waste, the kitchen has less mess. Something that previously was chaotic and often bad for my mental well-being, as well as my physical, is now joyful. If you want to try Hello Fresh I've always got free box tokens and if I recommend you we both get something free.
Sleep - make it restful
I sleep well. I do value it and respect the process, I'm very territorial about it and I'm not afraid to nap. Everyone knows not to wake me unless it's an emergency, and if I need to get up in the night, I try not to wake up too much and I go right back to sleep. A few things that help are:
When I'm tired I try to sleep
I don't read, go on my phone, or watch TV at bedtime
Instead, I get into my lovely comfy bed switch the lights off, and empty my mind
Being covered up is the best sleep trigger for me
I might listen to my breathing
Occasionally if my brain is very awake I'll count something boring avoiding stimulation
I don't get up to an alarm unless it's massively important
If I really can't sleep I get up and do something physical to tire me out preferably something to do with the thing which is keeping me awake. So if I'm worried about whether my post is ok I'll go make a copy and edit it (never the original). If I'm worried that we aren't ready for the workmen in the morning I'll go make sure we are. I would never go on my phone or switch on the TV, it wakes my brain and that's the bit that needs the sleep the most. Usually after about half an hour of activity I'm tired and can follow my usual routine.
I don't have blackout curtains, which means I generally wake up not long after sunrise, this is perfect for my work because I can write and create long before the rest of the house wakes up. It's how I've managed to create 4 platforms from scratch in the last two years. I wouldn't however do things that would interfere in other people's sleep. So no hoovering, loading the dishwasher, or putting the radio on. There are ways around this and I've got a little creative with a few things. Here are my quiet tips:
Don't hoover - use a flat pad style floor cleaner and a dustpan and brush for the collected bits, your floors will be cleaner and dust-free.
Use headphones - for music, TV etc.
Get outside - The garden will always appreciate your presence don't start the lawn mower at 6 am though.
If you need to tidy collect everything in a bag ready to take upstairs when it's fair on the family to do so
I don't do anything near where others are sleeping, I avoid upstairs completely
Minding your Mindfulness
When I first came across the concept of mindfulness it was as a student at Keele University, they had a lovely lady spend a few hours with us, it was nice but I didn't really get it. It took a mental health issue and some work on that to get me to understand how mindfulness helps. My interpretation of this is doing things at the moment with an empty mind focused on the process of the smallest activity. I've mentioned that's how I cook, I clean the same way. Recently I bought a garden swing and when my head is full or I'm stressed taking a couple of minutes outside on the swing - on my own, clears my head brilliantly.
Minding our Manners
When we ask our friends, colleagues, etc. "How are you? or whatever variation we use, I wonder are we asking about their wellness or just making a greeting?
Whilst the words and responses change by culture, user age, and from region to region the intent is the same. We have a need for the response, what we are looking to discover depends on our motivation. This generally falls into three categories.
We are gauging how our social interaction with them will play out. It's self-preserving and helps us work out if the interaction is going to be a good one. This will enable us to guard our wellness and take other actions as we need to.
We might be genuinely interested in them and this question gives them lots of scope to tell us, provided of course that they want to. If they don't want to then it doesn't matter what they say we won't know any more than we did before we asked! Unless we can read their other forms of communication and or know them well.
We might just ask out of politeness or to fill an awkward gap in communication.
Our motivation can be more than one category. BEWARE: The person we ask may choose to respond with a polite reply, if your question was a genuine interest with a desire to support them you'll have to dig deeper. This harmless social interaction can bring brilliant connected results for both parties, make better friendships, improve wellness, and even save lives if we use the words well. We'll talk more about this in future posts.
When there is trust and openness this tiny question has mighty value to us. It's difficult for many of us to open up and we speak best with people we already know like and trust. As part of my wellness, I try to connect with all my friends regularly with a genuine interest in how they are. I am guarded because I have a few friends who occasionally have "Despair Squid" tendencies (Red Dwarf reference) and I don't want to create issues for them, or with me. I prefer using a phone call or Facetime, these are better mediums than text or email, to gauge the interaction and I can always follow up with a face-to-face or support if I want to. Don't overstretch, this is about your well-being as much as theirs.
Incremental Change
An apple a day is sadly unlikely to keep the doctor away, as the adage goes, but working on your wellness might. The general advice for wellness is to make small regular changes, daily activities make for big improvements and in a short time new good habits. We can do this in every area of our lives. We'll endeavor to bring you as many of these as we can in future posts, forum activities, groups, and events. Please subscribe to keep up to date. Your free subscription means the world to us.
About Mental Health
This definition from the World Health Organisation, for me, sums up perfectly what Mental Health is I post it here without comment or POV.
Mental health is a state of mental well-being that enables people to cope with the stresses of life, realize their abilities, learn well and work well, and contribute to their community. It is an integral component of health and well-being that underpins our individual and collective abilities to make decisions, build relationships, and shape the world we live in. Mental health is a basic human right. And it is crucial to personal, community, and socio-economic development. Mental health is more than the absence of mental disorders. It exists on a complex continuum, which is experienced differently from one person to the next, with varying degrees of difficulty and distress and potentially very different social and clinical outcomes.
POV
Less than 2% of the Global budget for health was spent on mental health (WHO 2017 latest figures). This means that for the majority of the world's population support for our mental wellbeing is sparse. Let's focus on our own wellbeing, share on this site the bliss we find in an attempt to help others find theirs.
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