How to Achieve Holistic Wellness

When we talk of wellness, most of us only think of our physical health and focus on exercise, nutrition, maintaining optimal body weight, and others. However, wellness is much more than our physical health, as it encompasses physical, mental, emotional as well as spiritual wellbeing. Holistic wellness also includes providing fuel to your body, engaging your mind, and nurturing your spirit. While everything involves striving for optimal health, in fact, it is more about living a full life.  

Wellness incorporates eight interdependent dimensions of wellness; physical, intellectual, emotional, social, spiritual, vocational, financial, and environmental. You need to focus on all these dimensions because neglecting any of these can affect your health adversely over a period of time, and eventually affect the quality of your life. Often it can be challenging to make the right choices for health and wellbeing. We may know what is good for us and how we can do it, but we may not act on it. Below are a few aspects of wellness that you need to incorporate into your lifestyle.  

Self-regulation  

Being in control of your own self is crucial for the effective functioning of your body and mind. Precisely speaking, self-regulation is your ability to understand as well as manage your behavior and reactions to feelings and things happening around you. It includes being able to regulate reactions to strong emotions like frustration, excitement, anger, and embarrassment. When you have self-regulation, it enables you to act in your best interests in the short- as well as long-term. It is important to note that self-regulation entails a lot of mental energy because often you will be tempted to do things that will not be consistent with your values or best interests.  

Change your habits to achieve holistic wellness

Our brain always looks to conserve energy, but habits require little energy. In fact, our habits are very powerful. A study has shown that roughly 40% of our routine behavior is repeated as a habit. Our habits not only shape the way we exist but also shape our future. In fact, habits are vital for wellness. Good or bad habits influence our health, well-being, and quality of life. So, if you are keen to enhance your wellness, you will need to change some of your habits. When you change your habits for the better you also change your life for the better. When you want to change any habit, it is important that you change your routine. However, starting a new routine is often difficult, as we know what is beneficial for us but our habits are the greatest impediments. However, you can try to do this by self-awareness and adopting new strategies.  

Self-awareness  

As discussed above, you can achieve change in your life when you have self-awareness. Self-awareness is realizing who you are and adopting new routines utilizing your aptitudes, strengths, and tendencies. When you have self-awareness, you are capable of cultivating good habits that help to improve the quality of your life.  Self-awareness comprises knowledge about other facets of your being. For instance, aspects like whether you are a marathoner, sprinter, or procrastinator; under- or over-buyer; simplicity or abundance lover; finisher or opener; and familiarity or novelty lover are crucial for self-awareness. In addition, self-awareness also includes whether you are focused on promotion or prevention, and whether you like taking small or big steps.  

Adopting strategies to achieve holistic wellness

You can achieve change more easily when you adopt the right strategies that augment your chance for success. Such strategies take into account monitoring; scheduling; investing in accountability systems; abstaining; increasing or decreasing convenience; detecting rationalizations and false assumptions; planning safeguards; using distractions, rewards, and treats; pairing activities; and beginning with habits that directly reinforce self-control. If you want to achieve habit changes successfully it will require coordination of multiple strategies, which will help you to establish new behaviors. On average, it takes about 66 days to form new habits. Since it is a somewhat long-drawn process it is advisable that you adopt the maximum number of strategies possible.  

Change your lifestyle  

Sometimes it takes a long time to bring about any change. Every now and then you may need to undertake frequent experiments, irrespective of past failures. Though time-consuming, any attempt for betterment is worthwhile and often one success leads to another. When you are thinking of positive habits, wellness, wellbeing, and quality of life that you desire to achieve, keep in mind whether you are going to accept yourself or expect more from yourself. At the same time, consider whether you will embrace the present or consider the future. It is also important to ponder whether you are going to care about yourself or overlook yourself.  

Always remember that wellness is a dynamic, ever-changing, fluctuating process. It is a lifestyle that allows you to become the best person that your potential, circumstances, and fate will allow you to be. The past is history; the present and future lie in the choices you make today.