6 Dimensions of Wellness
The National Wellness Institute Defines Wellness As
“functioning optimally within your current environment.”
There are many “Wellness Wheels” out there and you will see others focusing on as many as 12 dimensions of wellness. At LS Wellness Solutions, I subscribe to the NWI’s model of 6 dimensions.
“Wellness” is a very broad term that covers a wide array of qualities. By definition, wellness is a state of being in balance and harmony. When any one dimension is out of balance, it knocks the whole wheel out of sync. Imagine taking a chunk out of one of these slices – it will cause the wheel to wobble. During toxic relationships, it’s impossible for this wheel to be balanced. Emotional abuse ALONE completely destroys every dimension on this chart. When you begin to add sexual abuse, spiritual abuse, financial abuse, etc. you realize just how detrimental it is to your health and well being. Let’s look at the different dimensions and how they overlap.
Emotional wellness: This is your sense of joy, well-being, ability to process emotions, anger management, sensitivity, and how you feel on a regular day-to-day basis emotionally. This affects your confidence, your outlook on life, and your ability to relate to yourself and love yourself. Which leads into Spiritual Wellness.
Self-Care is a form of Spiritual Wellness
Your relationship with self determines how you care for yourself.
Spiritual wellness: Despite what you may think, this is not about religion. Your spirit is who you are. It’s what makes you “you.” Your spirit is what connects you to the outside world around you and to other people. Spiritual wellness involves appreciation, gratitude, contentment, living in the moment and a sense of satisfaction with your place in the world. Although it’s not the core of it, religion does fall into spiritual wellness. How connected are you to God? He created you for a purpose, and without spiritual wellness it’s extremely hard to connect to that purpose.
Occupational Wellness: Following spiritual wellness in looking at your purpose, are you satisfied with your work? Are you happy in your vocation and where you want to be in your life? What about the people you work with – do you feel appreciated, accepted, valued, and important? Relationships at work and the meaning of your job bring extremely heavy weight into your wellness. Going to work every day doing a job you don’t like with people that negatively affect you creates a negative environment for your spirit.
Social Wellness: Your relationships with others – at work, in your family, and your friend circle. How you relate to others and interact with them, forming new friendships and as well as acquaintances. Are you able to socialize freely and without restriction? Can you meet new people in confidence and feel good about the impression you give them? Do you feel accepted and do you accept others easily? What about trust – how trusting or untrusting are you?
Intellectual Wellness: Are you growing and constantly learning? Do you use your mind on a regular basis to stay sharp and problem solve? Are you able to think for yourself and use reason and judgement? The ability to make decisions and be confident in those decisions takes you a long way. It’s important for us, as humans, to be learning and expanding our minds all the time. With technology these days it’s easy to rely on it instead of the incredible power between our ears.
The Function Of Nutrition & Activity
Food, water, and movement are more than just necessary to sustain life. They GIVE life, they influence your entire life’s experience.
Physical Wellness: Are you taking care of your body? Nutrition, exercise, sleep and rest are all ways that we can attend to physical wellness, but so are emotional wellness with regards to stress which has been proven to cause physical illness. Lack of sleep affects every area of your body, especially brain function – this can impact your social, intellectual, spiritual, emotional, and occupational wellness. If you are physically ill, every other dimension of wellness is impacted because of things like being out of work, being forgetful, not having the energy to spend time on other people, having a short fuse due to pain or becoming depressed.
When I work with chronically stressed clients on establishing their identity and claiming their purpose, we spend time on every area on this wheel, finding areas to improve and bring it back into balance so that they can be the best version of themselves. Finding balance is critical for having a successful recovery and being whole again!