7 Dimensions of Wellness: How Altering Your Habits Can Change Your Life

By Beth Rush

It’s a known fact: Adulting is hard. Perhaps you’ve been trying to juggle work, stay in touch with friends and family, maintain your health, pay bills, run errands and fit in time to do things you enjoy. Wellness is essential.

Current events can also send us reeling with overwhelm, stress and unhappiness — but you’re not alone. According to a 2022 Gallup survey, only 38% of Americans are satisfied with their everyday lives, the political climate and the economy.

However, when stress impedes your personal well-being, you know it’s time to address the situation. Begin by answering the following questions honestly:

• How do you feel right now?
• What is causing you to feel a certain way?
• Are you eating right and exercising?
• How do health and wellness affect your life?
• Are you prioritizing every aspect of your physical, emotional and mental health?

Some of us feel guilty for prioritizing our needs. However, doing so is critical for improving our overall health and mood. Making essential lifestyle changes that touch every facet of the seven dimensions of wellness helps us blossom into our healthiest selves.

The 7 Dimensions of Wellness

Living a happier, more enriched life means eliminating the emotional and physical stress that drags us down. You can achieve this by learning to balance the seven dimensions of wellness.

1.    Physical Wellness

Physical wellness embodies exercise, proper nutrition and quality sleep for better whole-body functioning. However, few people take full advantage of its benefits.

According to a 2018 report by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), only 22.9% of American ages 18 to 64 meet federal recommendations for daily exercise. Working out kickstarts your brain’s production of endorphins, dopamine and adrenaline, generating feelings of happiness and reducing anxiety, stress and pain.

In addition to exercise, a balanced diet is beneficial for your body’s physical wellness and weight management. Consuming essential vitamins and minerals helps prevent disease and injury. Additionally, getting at least seven to nine hours of sleep every night ensures better mental health and lowers your diabetes and heart disease risk.

A comprehensive fitness, diet and sleep regimen requires a bit of commitment, but implementing healthier habits — going on daily walks, meal planning and avoiding late-night screen time — can significantly improve your physicality.

2.    Emotional Wellness

Have you ever held your feelings in for so long that it led to an anxiety attack or depression? Taking care of your emotional wellness is critical for the healthy recognition, processing and expression of your emotions.

Thoughtfully communicating your feelings enables you to cope with stress better and improve your outlook. A clearer mind lets you alter circumstances in your favor and reduce negativity in your life. Try the following tips to enhance your emotional wellness:

• Foster an optimistic attitude
• Be aware of your thoughts and feelings
• Accept help and support from loved ones or a therapist
• Meditate or practice other tension management techniques
• Discover hobbies that offer stress relief
• Practice self-forgiveness

Your emotional state powerfully impacts every other dimension of wellness. It also enables you to empathize with what others may be feeling. Whether your feelings and perception are positive or negative depends on how well you can manage and control your emotions.

3.    Social dimension

Research has proven that strong relationships help lessen depressive symptoms and anxiety. This makes sense as humans are naturally social animals, making this type of wellness an essential dimension of our overall health and well-being.

Having the support from family, friends, partners, peers and the community enables you to express yourself more effectively. Additionally, social engagement helps us develop intimacy, beat feelings of loneliness and build an identity.

There are many ways you can improve your social wellness, including the pfollowing:

• Take a class or participate in a group-oriented hobby
• Volunteer for an organization or event
• Share your skills and talents with others
• Work on creating new, healthy relationships
• Nurture your existing relationships
• Learn vulnerability
• Develop healthy communication skills

Cultivating positive social relationships has lasting effects on your mental health and happiness. Finding your tribe and expanding your circle with new connections allows you to discover your belonging in the world.

4.    Occupational Wellness

Approximately 53% of Americans report feeling unhappy in their careers. In fact, job dissatisfaction has recently led to mass resignations across all industries, with 44% of the workforce seeking new employment.

American workers hope to retire at 64, making the average working life about 42 years — a long time to be miserable on the job.

Occupational wellness concentrates on developing job satisfaction and making the most of your aptitudes, expertise and natural talents. Rather than seeing your job as merely a paycheck, you find genuine enjoyment in working, interacting with co-workers and contributing to an organization.

Enjoy your many milestones and achievements, set goals for yourself, relish problem-solving and innovation, and find joy in continuous learning.

If your job really isn’t the best fit for you, explore other career opportunities, envision your ideal future, and search for a role that will allow you to maximize your unique skills and passions.

5.    Intellectual dimension

Investing in your intellectual wellness rewards many areas of your life. Intellectual health encompasses lifelong learning that empowers you to live in the arena, try new things, and develop your interests and passions.

Learning doesn’t end when you’re finished with school. Instead, allowing yourself to be a student of life helps you develop your innate abilities and uncover your purpose. It’s an opportunity to recognize your potential through reflection, creativity and personal growth.

Enhance your intellectual wellness by trying the following:

• Enroll in continuing education courses
• Immerse yourself in a foreign language
• Converse with others who challenge your thinking
• Read books, newspapers and studies
• Visit museums

In a way, intellectual wellness is an exercise for the mind — stimulation that inspires us, teaches resourcefulness and helps us improve ourselves.

6.    Environmental dimension

Studies have revealed that spending two hours in green spaces every day helps enhance your health and well-being. However, this isn’t too much of a surprise, considering that nature is long-regarded as emotionally and physically healing.

How we interact with the outdoors greatly influences our environmental wellness. Our very existence affects the health of our planet, empowering us to make lifestyle choices that positively shape the world around us.

A practice that concentrates on environmental wellness may include:

• Recycling
• Limiting your use of natural resources
• Conserving energy and developing an appreciation for all living things

You might also look for ways to reduce your carbon footprint, whether at home or the office. Ultimately, aligning yourself with better environmental stewardship to promote health and happiness is the crux of this particular dimension of wellness.

7.    Spiritual dimension

Your spirituality, religion, beliefs and moral convictions are deeply personal. One of the most beautiful aspects of being human is our connection to a higher power, regardless of faith.

Connecting to something bigger than yourself can bring greater meaning to your life. Spiritual wellness teaches us hope, love, empathy, grace, appreciation and forgiveness, whether it’s for ourselves or others.

It also instills openmindedness that fosters curiosity and acceptance of other people’s freedoms to hold onto their own values, beliefs and principles.

A spiritually sound person nurtures their beliefs and spiritual wellness by:

• Reflecting on what their beliefs are
• Meditating
• Asking questions and remaining curious
• Being present
• Viewing challenges as opportunities for personal growth
• Listening and observing
• Spending time in nature
• Proudly living by their convictions

Your spiritual and emotional wellness are closely aligned when creating new habits to support your health and well-being. Showing greater compassion for others and appreciating the world around you brings higher spiritual awareness and peace.

Balancing the 7 Dimensions for Optimal Living

Each of the seven dimensions of wellness is interconnected, working concurrently to enhance your quality of life. Prioritizing your physical, emotional, mental and social well-being becomes much easier when you realize you deserve optimal health and happiness.

Author Bio

Beth, the Managing Editor and content manager at Body+Mind, is well-respected in the mental health, nutrition and fitness spaces. In her spare time, Beth enjoys trying out new recipes and going for runs with her dog

The views and opinions expressed in this post are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect all or some of our beliefs and policy.  Any links on this page does not necessarily mean they have been endorsed by Defying Mental Illness.

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