Monday, July 1, 2013

SOCIAL WELLNESS



By Terry Orr




“Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being, and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.” ~World Health Organization, 1948


“Wellness is the conscious and deliberate process by which people are actively involved in enhancing their well-being: intellectual, physical, social, emotional, occupational and spiritual” ~ Hatfield

Social Wellness (family, community and environment) – focuses on how you choose to define and connect with your community and the people around you. 



Physical –your body's health, which involves nutrition, exercise, promoting over-all safety and wellness, and preventing physical illness.
Spiritual (values and ethics) – to understanding your place and purpose, how you make meaning of what happens to you, and what your mind goes to for comfort and relief.
Intellectual – means feeling stimulated and engaged with learning and staying open to new ideas and perspectives.
Emotional involves being aware of and managing your feelings, being at peace with who you are, and having the tools you need to weather life’s ups and downs.
Occupational – is the work you choose to do and how you feel it contributes to your community and fulfills you.

According to Work Smart. Life Smart –

July is Social Wellness Month and it reminds us that we need to reach out to others and build stronger social ties with family and friends. Social Wellness encourages us to develop better communications with those around us including the ability to share our feelings and needs. It involves respecting yourself and others and developing a solid social support system.

Social Wellness takes planning and effort to carve out time for those activities, as they may not happen naturally in today’s hectic world. We know from our research that socially isolated people are more susceptible to illness and have a death rate two to three times higher than those who are not socially isolated.  However people who maintain their social network and support systems do better under stress and are physically and mentally healthier.  They even achieve higher grade point averages.


So how important in Social Wellness in our daily life – one indication is the explosion of social media over the past decade.  According to eBizMBA the three top Social Media Sites (Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn) average about 1.1 Billion visits each month – that is nearly one in seven people globally.  Folks reaching out to others – finding common ground – communicating – sharing – building relationships – a virtual family/home.


What we are all looking for – is balance in our lives – while sounding fairly straight forward – with our daily lives, most folks deal with the ever increasing demands on their time – and finding true balance is all to often is simply not possible.  The challenge is to prioritizes things best we can – and review what really and truly are the important things in our lives.




References and Links:


(Photos from Google)

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