What is optimal well-being?
Optimal well-being or optimal wellness is the buzzword these days. The question arises what is an optimal well-being.
As per a Dictionary, Optimal means Most desirable or Most Favorable and Well-being means the state of being healthy, happy, blissful, prosperous. Hence, I feel Optimal well-being means the most desirable or most favorable state of being.
Optimal well-being is multi-dimensional and our ability to live life to the fullest depends on our Optimal well-being and our Optimal well-being depends on several factors like physical wellbeing, mental and emotional wellbeing, spiritual wellbeing, social wellbeing, Intellectual wellbeing, and financial wellbeing. All these factors are interconnected and if one of these is impacted adversely, all others will be impacted eventually and a person will enter into a state of discomfort or disease.
Now let us look at what do all these factors mean.
Physical Well-being: Physical wellbeing means taking care of our physical body by series of lifestyle choices so that we can avoid preventable illness. This is important because these days people put premium gasoline in their BMWs and Benz’s but will put total junk in their body and mind. If your car breaks down, you can get another one but what happens if your body breaks down?
Mental and Emotional well-being: According to WHO “There is no universally accepted “definition” of mental well-being. This is probably because mental well-being may have a different definition for different individuals. For some, it may be attaining contentment or being able to stay happy. For others, it may be the absence of disease. It also may mean the absence of negative determinants in the life of an individual or a community. Mental well-being includes cognitive, emotional, and behavioral responses at a personal level.
In simple words, Mental and Emotional wellbeing is the state of happiness and peace. It determines how well we can handle stress.
Spiritual Well-being: There is no set definition of spiritual wellbeing either but spiritual wellbeing means our ability to clearly identify our purpose in life. Have a definiteness of purpose and having a set of principles, values, and morals. Follow the path of righteousness by using intellect and awareness to differentiate between good and evil.
Social well-being: Social well-being means our ability to create and maintain meaningful and positive relationships.
Intellectual Wellbeing: Intellectual well-being means our ability to pursue knowledge and skills. It also means our ability to discern between right and wrong, between good and evil, and between morality and immorality. There is a saying in India “ जैसी मति वैसी गति “ which means your destiny depends on how you use your intellect.
Financial Well-being: As per consumerfinance.gov Financial well-being means having financial security and financial freedom of choice, in the present and in the future.
It is important to strive for achieving wellness in all the above-mentioned areas as they all are interconnected. Imagine your life as a wheel of a bicycle and all these above-mentioned aspects of overall well-being are the spokes of the wheel. Now you see, how they are interconnected? If one spoke is weak or broken, it has an adverse effect on all the other spokes. Contact me to learn some simple steps to attain optimal well-being.