Well­ness is a state of com­plete phys­i­cal, men­tal, and so­cial well-be­ing, and not mere­ly the ab­sence of dis­ease or in­fir­mi­ty.” – The World Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion.

Well­ness is the con­scious de­vel­op­ment of the whole self

Ir­re­spec­tive of a per­son’s age, size, shape or sta­tus, it is well­ness that is the cor­ner­stone of one’s qual­i­ty of life. It de­ter­mines how we ul­ti­mate­ly look, feel, in­ter­act with oth­ers and thrive in life and work.

Em­bark­ing on a well­ness jour­ney is a process of search­ing for the ap­pro­pri­ate “tools” to make you a health­i­er and hap­pi­er hu­man be­ing, plus dis­cov­er­ing your own ef­fec­tive meth­ods to use these “tools” for con­tin­ued growth and de­vel­op­ment.

Glob­al Well­ness Day

With the slo­gan “One day can change your whole life,” we cel­e­brate Glob­al Well­ness Day on the sec­ond Sat­ur­day of June every year as an In­ter­na­tion­al day.

Glob­al Well­ness Day is an en­tire­ly not-for-prof­it day, a so­cial project ded­i­cat­ed to liv­ing well. The pur­pose of Glob­al Well­ness Day is to ask the ques­tion, even if for just one day, “How can I live a health­i­er and bet­ter life?”, to di­rect the thoughts of both in­di­vid­u­als and so­ci­ety to­wards “liv­ing well” and to raise aware­ness.

The main aims of the day are:

• ↓To rec­og­nize the val­ue of our lives

• ↓To pause and think, even if for just one day of the year

• ↓To be free from the stress of every­day city life and bad habits

• ↓To make peace with our­selves

• ↓To raise aware­ness about liv­ing well and in­crease mo­ti­va­tion, not just for to­day, but for the re­main­ing 364 days of the year

COVID-19 im­pact­ed Well­be­ing

Dur­ing the pan­dem­ic, op­por­tu­ni­ties to be so­cial were di­min­ished im­pact­ing neg­a­tive­ly on our well­be­ing. Anx­i­eties were am­pli­fied and de­pres­sion be­came the most de­bil­i­tat­ing health prob­lem in the world. This prob­lem is of­ten man­i­fest­ed in the form of in­som­nia, stress, poor nu­tri­tion, phys­i­cal in­ac­tiv­i­ty, obe­si­ty, and heart dis­ease.

In this edi­tion of Health Plus we join the Glob­al Com­mu­ni­ty in plac­ing the spot­light on WELL­NESS. We share proven tools and tips to nav­i­gate your So­cial Well­ness, re­duce stress and op­ti­mize your Self­care and Well­be­ing. We al­so look at check­points to im­prove the so­cial con­nec­tions with­in your fam­i­ly and your com­mu­ni­ty, cre­at­ing long last­ing, pos­i­tive healthy habits. (Page 2)

Fi­nan­cial Dis­tress

The Amer­i­can Psy­cho­log­i­cal As­so­ci­a­tion (APA) rec­og­nizes fi­nan­cial stress as the lead­ing cause of un­healthy be­hav­iours like smok­ing, weight gain, and al­co­hol and drug abuse. Oth­er be­hav­iours linked to fi­nan­cial stress are gam­bling and overex­tend­ing cred­it bal­ances. Each time an in­di­vid­ual turns to these tem­po­rary stress re­liev­ers, the APA con­cludes that the stress re­turns and of­ten at even greater in­ten­si­ty. This spe­cial edi­tion of Health Plus al­so looks at strate­gies to nur­ture your Fi­nan­cial Well­ness. (Page 7)

Take Stock of

Where You Are

– Oprah Win­frey

Be­fore you can get to where you want to be, it helps to un­der­stand where you are. Just as you check your bank bal­ance to know where your fi­nances stand, you should as­sess as­pects of your health.

To help you take stock of the var­i­ous parts of your health and life that add up to over­all well­ness, Oprah Win­frey, a known Well­ness Ad­vo­cate have cre­at­ed a set of ques­tions to ask your­self about your body, mind, and spir­it. An­swer truth­ful­ly about where you ac­tu­al­ly now are, not where you wish you could be, she em­pha­sizes.

Nu­tri­tion:

Are you eat­ing a lot of veg­eta­bles and fruits, and avoid­ing prepack­aged fare as much as pos­si­ble? Are your por­tion sizes mod­er­ate? Are you drink­ing suf­fi­cient wa­ter through­out the day?

Move­ment:

Do you in­cor­po­rate move­ment in­to your dai­ly ac­tions, such as by tak­ing the stairs and get­ting up from your desk chair if you’re sit­ting too long? Are you ex­er­cis­ing for at least two and a half hours each week? When you wake up in the morn­ing, do you feel rest­ed?

Emo­tions and stress:

Are you man­ag­ing stress­ful sit­u­a­tions in a healthy way, rather than by drink­ing, smok­ing, overeat­ing, or us­ing oth­er com­pen­sat­ing be­hav­iours? Can you process dif­fi­cult feel­ings or do you run from them? Are you sen­si­tive enough to no­tice how oth­er peo­ple in your life are feel­ing?

Learn­ing:

Are you cu­ri­ous to dis­cov­er new things, peo­ple, and places? Are you en­gaged in ac­tiv­i­ties that chal­lenge your mind? And when new in­for­ma­tion comes to you, are you able to change your mind or do you re­main ob­sti­nate?

Work:

Does the work you do line up with your val­ues? Do you still care about the qual­i­ty of your out­put, or is your job sim­ply about the pay­check?

Re­la­tion­ships:

Do you spend enough time with oth­er peo­ple, es­pe­cial­ly those who bring out your best qual­i­ties? Are your re­la­tion­ships sat­is­fy­ing to you? And — a big one for women — are you not ruled by your need to please?

Pur­pose:

Are your life choic­es giv­ing you mean­ing? Do you feel con­nect­ed to some­thing larg­er than you? Are you ex­cit­ed about each new day?

Pos­i­tive and Proac­tive Frame­work

Well­ness re­quires pri­mar­i­ly pos­i­tive per­spec­tives and val­ues by which to live. It al­so re­quires a strong sense of pur­pose and con­scious, de­lib­er­ate ac­tion. These are our start­ing as­sump­tions, and they have stood well through time. How­ev­er, they pro­vide mere­ly a sim­ple frame­work. What you put in­side that frame­work is to­tal­ly up to you.