CSU Pueblo recognizes the importance of your well-being. Wellness comprises of eight mutually co-dependence dimensions: emotional, physical, occupational, social, spiritual, intellectual, environmental, and financial. If any one of these dimensions is neglected over time, it will adversely affect one’s health, well-being, and quality of life. A well-rounded balance of these wellness dimensions provides holistic harmony to one’s personal well-being.
Just like a balanced diet is needed for healthy nutrition, balanced wellness engages the body, mind, and nurtures the spirit. This multi-dimensional wellness approach focuses on emphasizing the importance of positivity and eternal motivation for promoting healthy habits to improve one’s quality of life.
Learn how each dimension of wellness helps create an environment that nurtures and builds a healthy lifestyle.
What does wellness look like to you? When you envision someone who is “well” and “healthy,” what comes to mind? What factors do you think influence wellness?
The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) has identified eight dimensions of wellness to focus on to optimize health. The eight dimensions include: emotional, spiritual, intellectual, physical, environmental, financial, occupational, and social. Wellness can be compromised by lack of support, trauma, unhelpful thinking styles, chronic illness/disability, and substance use. The eight dimensions are described below and are accompanied by examples and ideas for improving each area.
1. Emotional
SAMHSA identifies emotional wellness as an ability to cope effectively with life and build satisfying relationships with others. People with healthy emotional wellness feel confident, in control of their feelings and behaviors, and are able to handle life challenges. Working through life challenges can build resiliency as we learn that setbacks can be overcome. Emotional health can be maintained or improved by engaging in regular leisure and recreational activities. Do activities that involve each of your senses: smell, taste, touch, sight, and sound. Listen to music, eat your favorite food, light your favorite candle, play with your pet, and watch your favorite movie or the sunset.
2. Spiritual
Spiritual wellness is related to your values and beliefs that help you find meaning and purpose in your life. Spiritual wellness may come from activities such as volunteering, self-reflection, meditation, prayer, or spending time in nature. Signs of strong spiritual health include having clear values, a sense of self-confidence, and a feeling of inner peace. To improve your spiritual health, it can help to create a quiet space for solitude and contemplation or a place of curiosity and playfulness. Maintaining a playful, curious attitude can help you find experiences that offer hope, purpose, and meaning.
3. Intellectual
Intellectual wellness is when you recognize your unique talents to be creative and you seek out ways to use your knowledge and skills. When you foster your intellectual wellness, you participate in activities that cultivate mental growth. Reading, doing challenging puzzles such as crosswords or Sudoku, debating issues with others who have opposing viewpoints, learning a new language or musical instrument, trying a new hobby, or teaching and tutoring others are all ways to maintain or improve your intellectual wellness. When you challenge yourself to learn a new skill, you are building your intellectual health. People who pay attention to their intellectual wellness often find that they have better concentration, improved memory, and better critical thinking skills.
4. Physical
Physical wellness is affected by physical activity, healthy nutrition, and adequate sleep. There are many examples of physical activity that range in levels of intensity from light to vigorous. Maintaining your physical health can include yoga, bike riding, jumping rope, engaging in sports, running, walking, jogging, skiing, dancing, tennis, and gardening. Many people use smoking as a coping tool. Unfortunately, this method of coping can lead to a number of physical health problems, including heart disease and cancer, and can increase one’s chances of premature death. SAMHSA states that smoking-related illnesses are related to half of all deaths for people diagnosed with a behavioral health condition.
Environmental wellness is related to the surroundings you occupy. This dimension of health connects your overall well-being to the health of your environment. Your environment, both your social and natural surroundings, can greatly impact how you feel.
5. Environmental
Environmental wellness is related to the surroundings you occupy. This dimension of health connects your overall well-being to the health of your environment. Your environment, both your social and natural surroundings, can greatly impact how you feel. It can be hard to feel good if you are surrounded by clutter and disorganization, or if you feel unsafe in your environment. Pollution, violence, garbage buildup, and water conservation are some of the factors affecting environmental wellness. Ways to manage environmental wellness include creating neighborhood watches, recycling, planting a personal or community garden, purchasing products with minimal packaging, avoiding littering, and conserving energy and water by turning off lights and water when not in use.
6. Financial
Financial wellness is a feeling of satisfaction about your financial situation. Finances are a common stressor for people, so being able to minimize worry about this aspect of your life can enhance your overall wellness. Options for managing financial wellness include having a household budget, starting a savings account and adding to it every month even if it is just a small amount, saving some of your income in an emergency account, cutting back or limiting unnecessary expenses, avoiding credit card debt, donating to a meaningful charity, shopping at thrift stores, utilizing the library for free books and DVDs, and cooking your own meals instead of dining out. Try tracking your spending for a month to see where your money is going and set goals based on what you find.
7. Occupational
Occupational wellness is a sense of satisfaction with your choice of work. Occupational wellness involves balancing work and leisure time, building relationships with coworkers, and managing workplace stress. An occupational wellness goal might include finding work that is meaningful and financially rewarding. Finding work that fits with your values, interests, and skills can help maintain occupational wellness. Consider your office culture and determine how supported you feel; if you discover you feel a lack of support, seek out support from others close to you and be sure to engage in recreational activities that can help balance out work stress.
8. Social
Social wellness is a sense of connectedness and belonging. The social dimension of health involves creating and maintaining a healthy support network. Building a healthy social dimension might involve asking a colleague or acquaintance out for lunch, joining a club or organization, setting healthy boundaries, using good communication skills that are assertive rather than passive or aggressive, being genuine and authentic with others, and treating others in a respectful way.
What dimensions do you feel are your strongest? What areas would you like to work on? If you have areas you would like to improve, seeking out support can be helpful, whether it’s from a friend, family member, or counselor. What would life be like if you optimized all eight dimensions? Setting goals for yourself in each area can help you feel more fulfilled and optimize your health.
Reference:
Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). (2016, April 28). The Eight Dimensions of Wellness. Retrieved from http://www.samhsa.gov/wellness-initiative/eight-dimensions-wellness
© Copyright 2016 GoodTherapy.org. All rights reserved. Permission to publish granted by Marjie L. Roddick, MA, NCC, LMHC
The preceding article was solely written by the author named above. Any views and opinions expressed are not necessarily shared by GoodTherapy.org. Questions or concerns about the preceding article can be directed to the author or posted as a comment below.
The Eight Dimensions of Wellness
Wellness is such a broad term and how we think about wellness is affected by our culture and our life experiences. We believe wellness is conscious, self-directed and evolving; holistic and multidimensional; positive and affirming; and inclusive.
All dimensions of wellness need our attention for us to truly flourish. There doesn’t have to be a balance among all dimensions. Instead, the goal is to find a personal harmony with the dimensions that is most authentic for you. You can’t get there passively, it requires active awareness, acceptance and commitment. It is our hope that the following information about the eight dimensions of wellness will help you get started or refine your wellness plan.
Select a dimension to learn more:
Tennessee’s Coordinated School Health initiative is based on the CDC’s model that included the following eight components. Summaries for these components have been taken from the CDC.
1. Comprehensive School Health Education (grades K – 12)
A planned, sequential, K-12 curriculum that addresses the physical, mental, emotional, and social dimensions of health. The curriculum is designed to motivate and assist students to maintain and improve their health, prevent disease, and reduce health-related risk behaviors. It allows students to develop and demonstrate increasingly sophisticated health-related knowledge, attitudes, skill, and practices. The health education curriculum includes a variety of topics such as personal health, family health, community health consumer health, environmental health, sexuality education, mental and emotional health, injury prevention and control of disease, and substance use and abuse. Qualified, trained teachers provide health education.
2. Physical Education and Activity
A planned, sequential K-12 curriculum that provided cognitive content and learning experiences in a variety of activity areas such as basic movement skills; physical fitness; rhythms and dance; and aquatics. Quality physical education should promote, through a variety of planned physical activities, each student’s optimum physical, mental, emotional, and social development, and should promote activities and sports that all student enjoy and can pursue throughout their lives. Qualified, trained teachers teach physical activity.
3. Nutrition Services
Access to a variety of nutritious and appealing meals that accommodate the health and nutrition needs of all students. School Nutrition programs reflect the U.S. Dietary Guidelines for Americans and other criteria to achieve nutrition integrity. The school nutrition services offer students a learning laboratory for classroom nutrition and health education, and serve as a resource for linkages with nutrition-related community services. Qualified child nutrition professional provide theses services.
4. School Health Services
Services provided for students to appraise, protect, and promote health. These services are designed to ensure access or referral to primary health care services for both, foster appropriate use of primary health care services, prevent and control communicable disease and other health problems, provide emergency care for illness or injury, promote and provide educational and counseling opportunities for promoting and maintain individual, family, and community health. Qualified professionals such as physicians, nurses, dentists, health educators, and other allied health personnel provide these services.
5. School Counseling, Psychological and Social Services
Services provided to improve student’s mental, emotional, and social health. These services include individual and group assessment, interventions, and referrals. Organizational assessment and consultation skills of counselors and psychologists contribute not only to the health of students but also to the health of the school environment. Professionals such as certified school counselors, psychologists, and social workers provide these services.
6. Healthy and Safe School Environments
The physical and aesthetic surroundings and the psychosocial climate and culture of the school. Factors that influence the physical environment include the school building and the area surrounding it, and biological or chemical agents that are detrimental to health, and physical conditions such as temperature, noise and lighting. The psychological environment includes the physical, emotional, and social conditions that affect the well-being of students and staff.
7. Student, Family and Community Involvement in Schools
An integrated school, parent, and community approach for enhancing the health and well-being of students. School health advisory council, coalitions, and broadly based constituencies for school health can build support for school health program efforts. Schools actively solicit parent involvement and engage community resources and services to respond more effectively to the health-related needs of students.
8. Health Promotion for School Staff
Opportunities for school staff to improve their health status through activities such as health assessment, health education health-related fitness activities. These opportunities encourage school staff to pursue a healthy lifestyle that contributes to their improved health status, improved moral, and a greater personal commitment to the schools’s overall coordinated health program. This personal commitment often transfers into greater commitment to the health of students and creates positive role modeling. Health Promotion activities have improved productivity, decreased absenteeism, and reduced health insurance costs.
Children must be healthY to be educated and must be educated to be healthy.
