Wellness refers to the condition of good physical and mental health, especially when maintained by proper diet, exercise, and habits. Nutrition refers to the nurturing of our body, in our ability to keep it healthy and functioning as it is supposed to do. Our ability to provide the body with all the necessary food, vitamins, and minerals so that we continue to thrive in our daily life processes.
But do we know if we are really well?
How can we tell?
The first place to start would be with the examination of your eating habits. Since we are a product of what we eat, if our eating habits are unhealthy, or do not provide the nutrition we need, we’re not going to be healthy individuals at the end of the process.
Do you take in more calories than your body needs? Are you supplementing your vitamins and minerals to make sure you are getting your recommended daily allowances? If you’re not making the most basic of efforts to take care of your nutritional needs, you aren’t a well individual. You may not look sick, you may not have any noticeable symptoms of ill-health, but you’re not the well individual you could be.
Next, you might want to look at your exercise habits, if there are any. If there aren’t any exercise routines to examine, there is little to no wellness. Everyone, no matter what their age, benefits from exercise. It keeps our bodies conditioned, our mental sharpness working at top speed, and thanks to the physical aspect, we get a boost to our cardio health, extra calorie burn, and more oxygen to those cells!
What about the stress levels in your life? Do you work in an environment with high levels of stress? Is your personal life a source of comfort or does it add to your stress levels? Do you engage in some form of stress-relieving activity? Stress is the number one contributor to heart attacks and strokes.
Stress is basically an out-of-control situation for most adults today. We manage to schedule every moment of our free time and leave ourselves with no time for quiet reflection, or time to deal with life’s unexpected emergencies.
Stress brings us to the next two topics of health abuse. Smoking and drinking are often used to offset the effect that stress has on our nervous system. These solutions however do not provide any real help. If you smoke, drink, or lose sleep to excess, you’re not the healthy individual you could be. Smoking, drinking, and loss of sleep work to our detriment, and it takes extreme discipline to stop. Smoking fills our bodies with carcinogens and works to keep us tired and lethargic.
There are so many occasions to stop and question our efforts at maintaining optimal health, that we usually don’t even take the time to begin the examination. But it is beneficial to our overall health, the quality and quantity of our life, to make every effort to be well, healthy, individuals.