Health and wellness are often considered the same thing, yet they have distinct differences. Health relates to your physical functioning, whereas wellness is focused on quality of being in all areas of your life, not just your body. Understanding the difference can help you build both better health and wellness. Most people in our society use these words as though they mean the same thing.
But there are actually some key differences between the two. Understanding the difference between health and wellness can help you get clarity on your goals, create a plan that makes sense for you, and start to build a quality of life that is sustainable and that you can do for a lifetime. Health is an excellent place to start on your path to wellness. Health is a component of wellness, but wellness is an overarching intention and attention to all areas of your life.
In the past, good health was defined as the absence of disease or infirmity, though the definition of health has been expanded to include a healthy mental state, as well. Health is focused more on your physical body and how well-functioning it is—or is not.
Your health involves the way you eat your nutrition , how you move your body exercise , and the absence of acute or chronic diseases. The definition of wellness is an active concept that describes living a healthy lifestyle and achieving your full potential.
Wellness is more concerned with a lifestyle that produces well-being. Wellness is about all aspects of your life, as well — your body, your work, your relationships, your emotional life, and so much more.
Together, health and wellness can help you achieve a high quality of well-being. Focusing on wellness specifically can help you to also achieve good health for a lifetime. While health focuses more on diseases, genetics, and illness and, hopefully, the lack of health problems!
For example, you might be physically fit and free from disease, but your emotional well-being is suffering. Wellness programs address every aspect of life so that you can always be reaching an improved state of health and well-being.
You can also have physical health without enjoying physical wellness. We all need to work toward both states in order to get to a place where we are truly healthy and well. Examples of wellness factors might include eating intentionally and as clean as feels mentally healthy for you, choosing to move your body every day in joyful ways, working on your issues so you can experience better relationships, and choosing a career that supports your wellbeing and influences those around you in healthy ways.
Before you set out to improve your health and wellness, it can be an effective strategy to go deep into understanding the why behind your goals. Sometimes goal setting and achieving can feel really challenging, so getting clear on your purpose and intention can help you keep with it.
Getting to the source of experiences is the way of a solid wellness practice. There are a number of dimensions of health that could be listed out, but there are 3 primary ones that most people reference when discussing health. Most articles on how to improve your health focus on one of these categories. These could include tips for improving your nutrition, physical activity and exercise, getting help with mental issues, or becoming more emotionally intelligent. The ways in which you experience your body are so important to your overall health and physical fitness.
Physical health is all about paying attention to your body. To improve your physical health, you might work with a doctor or other healthcare practitioner to identify illness or other issues. Physical health and vitality is a key cornerstone aspect of overall well-being. You also nourish your mind through the choices you make in nourishing your body the mind-gut connection is an important one to learn about!
Mental health is equally as important in your wellness journey as physical health is. Your emotions are part of your mental health, but they are a specific aspect of mental health to pay attention to.
You will also need to retrain your brain to function in emotionally appropriate ways throughout all of your present day life and beyond.
Taking good care of your emotions can have a huge impact on your ability to achieve well-being. Wellness is a far more broad spectrum that includes all aspects of being alive. At the IAWP, we combine these 12 elements into our unique Wellness System to create the most inclusive view of wellness possible.
When people experience excessive stress, it increases the risk that they will also develop depression. Developing depression drastically decreases a person's well-being. For some people, depression causes sexual problems, weight changes, gastrointestinal upset, forgetfulness, difficulty with short-term memory, and much more.
Just like well-being impacts health, mental health has very real and far-reaching impacts on physical health. Good mental health is essential to good physical health. Both physical and mental health impact well-being. Likewise, both objective and subjective well-being affect mental health.
This illustrates how comprehensive well-being promotes good mental health. Relationships with other people are critical to our well-being and mental health. And for good reason: humans are social creatures. We evolved to live in tight-knit groups of other people. In evolutionary terms, our survival depended on it. Meaningful relationships enhance our sense of purpose and promote healthy behaviors — just to name a few.
While connecting with other people can be tough in the post-COVID world, there are still plenty of ways to nurture meaningful relationships. Here are a few to try:. Did you know that exercise can improve your sleep, enhance your mood, and decrease feelings of anxiety, depression, and stress? In fact, studies show that physical activity can treat moderate depression as effectively as leading antidepressant medications, without the side effects. If you want to reap the benefits of exercise for well-being, you can start small.
According to a study conducted by the Harvard T. Research shows that learning improves confidence and self-esteem, promotes a sense of purpose, helps build connections with others, and can slow cognitive aging. With that in mind, get out there and learn something new. The great thing about charitable work is that there are thousands of ways to do it, so you can find a cause that truly ignites your passion and aligns with your interests. Most of us have experienced, firsthand, how stressful it can be to live in the past or the future.
Over time, mindfulness can promote many health and well-being benefits, including:. If you want to incorporate more mindfulness into your daily life, we recommend using one of the many available apps on the market.
You can also practice breathing exercises , walking meditation , yoga, or other practices that help root you in daily life. Fortunately, there are many ways we can improve our mental and physical health and promote well-being in our daily lives, starting with understanding what creates well-being and knowing how to generate more of it. Through mindfulness, giving back, moving our bodies, learning new things, and connecting with others, we can improve our well-being and health daily.
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