by Brandon Lee, DHSc, RD
Most people know what fitness is, but when they hear “wellness,” they’re not always sure what that means. Wellness is functioning at your best within your current environment—thriving in your life. While fitness is focused on optimizing your health, wellness is about developing and maintaining a healthy foundation for life. In other words, wellness is the foundation on which fitness can be built. It’s also a conscious, self-directed, and evolving process of reaching your full potential. There are 6 dimensions of wellness: physical, intellectual, occupational, spiritual, social, and emotional. Each of these areas represents a unique aspect of life that needs to be tended to regularly. As a doctor of Health Science (DHSc) and a Holistic Health and Fitness (H2F) dietitian who teaches nutrition and human performance strategies, I’ve learned how important it is for people to understand and nurture their wellness.
Physical Wellness
Physical wellness is where most people typically focus their time and attention. It includes physical self-care, such as regular health screenings, and taking part in various health-enriching activities, such as exercise, playing sports, or simply walking. Exercise should include aerobic training, such as running, rowing, or swimming, as well as resistance training, such as weightlifting. The American College of Sports Medicine estimates about half of all Americans meet aerobic exercise guidelines, and less than one third meet resistance training requirements. Both are essential to maintaining physical wellness.
In addition to physical movement, physical wellness includes nutrition and sleep. A healthy diet requires that you eat from all 5 food groups (fruits, vegetables, proteins, grains, and dairy), consume minimally processed foods, and fuel consistently throughout the day, for example every 3–4 hours. Tactical athletes in particular should aim to eat breakfast every day (especially after morning physical training) and eat 3 meals per day at regular times.
The National Sleep Foundation recommends adults ages 18 to 64 get 7–9 hours of sleep per night. Sleep time and quality can affect many aspects of your physical performance, including speed, endurance, strength, power, injury risk, immunity, attention, decision-making, learning, and memory consolidation—all vital for Service Members.
Intellectual Wellness
Intellectual (or mental) wellness encompasses activities that lead to learning, personal development, and sharing your unique gifts with others. Examples include reading, taking classes, doing puzzles, creating art and music, and learning new skills and hobbies.
One of the best ways to boost intellectual wellness is to have a growth mindset. People with a growth mindset believe that personal characteristics like intellect and talent can be developed or changed. In contrast, a fixed mindset is the belief that personal characteristics like brains and talent are unchangeable. Embracing a growth mindset not only strengthens intellectual wellness but also opens up a world of possibilities for personal growth.
To practice a growth mindset and improve intellectual wellness is to tackle new challenges in life. People with a growth mindset thrive in these moments and become lifelong learners. Challenges are opportunities to learn something new, including the chance to learn about yourself.
People with high intellectual wellness find new and creative outlets to keep their minds sharp. Consider taking on a new pursuit that challenges your mind. Maybe you’d like to learn how to brew beer, join a strategy board game club, or go to college part-time. The goal of intellectual wellness is to continually develop your goals and stretch your mental abilities.
Occupational Wellness
Occupational wellness is often thought of as someone's satisfaction with their job or career, but it’s much more than that. Occupational wellness is the personal satisfaction and enrichment you get through your work, school, volunteering, or anything else you do regularly. Occupational wellness applies to all facets of your life, from work to home life. One way to find and build occupational wellness is to choose a profession that provides the most joy and satisfaction. Outside of work, try to do activities that pique your interest and make you happy. Developing occupational wellness takes time and requires an open mind.
Occupational wellness can be disrupted by life or job events. These disruptions are typically temporary, happening when someone can’t do their usual or preferred life activities. Examples include changing duty stations, deployments, and rehabbing an injury. After a period of occupational disruption, people sometimes return to their job with an enhanced level of appreciation.
Aligning your career and life activities with your personal values, interests, and guiding principles can help improve occupational wellness and overall life satisfaction.
Spiritual Wellness
Spiritual wellness is an appreciation for life and the natural forces that exist in the universe. People who are spiritual accept there’s more to life than merely physical or tangible things. You can develop spiritual wellness through self-reflection, self-discovery, and living in connection with the world around you. For example, in the Army, the “Soldier's spirit” is a key part of spiritual fitness, consisting of consciousness, creativity, and connection. To develop spiritual wellness, it’s important to slow down and reflect on your life.
Most people think spiritual wellness and spirituality are only tied to religion. Although they share some similarities, they are distinct. Spirituality looks different for everyone, but it often involves a search for meaning in life. It’s common for people to find meaning in their lives through religious practices such as attending church or following specific dietary practices, but religion isn’t the only way. Spiritual practices include meditating, practicing positive self-talk, reading inspirational material, spending time in nature, and meeting with chaplains or other religious leaders.
Social Wellness
Social wellness refers to the quality of someone’s relationships and their ability to contribute to their community. Due to the physiological and psychological stresses of military training and operations, Service Members benefit from leaning on family, friends, community, and colleagues for support. How you leverage your support system during stressful moments directly reflects your social wellness.
Healthy social practices root you in a network of people ready to support one another through good times and bad. Staying in touch with friends and family, joining groups or clubs, and volunteering are all ways to build and maintain social wellness. People with high levels of social wellness take an active role in their community and actively contribute to something that benefits the group.
Emotional Wellness
Emotional wellness is awareness and acceptance of your feelings and your capacity to manage the related behaviors. Emotional wellness includes self-acceptance, self-confidence, self-control, and trust. One key aspect of emotional wellness is emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence refers to the extent to which someone is attuned to their feelings and the feelings of others and can use those emotions to manage their own mental processes. People with high levels of emotional intelligence and wellness recognize their mood, attitude, and thoughts and manage them appropriately to maintain healthy relationships.
If you want to improve your emotional wellness, take some time to reflect and de-stress. Healthy emotional wellness practices include getting enough sleep, talking things out with a battle buddy, downloading and using a mindfulness app, and learning stress management techniques. Sometimes, you might need professional help. One research study found that Soldiers who got annual wellness checks with a mental health professional—such as a counselor, marriage and family therapist, or social worker—found the sessions helpful, were more likely to seek help in the future, and reported high rates of resilience.
The Wellness Journey
When it comes to achieving overall wellness, it's vital to remember that the journey is unique for each individual. To enhance your physical, intellectual, occupational, spiritual, social, and emotional wellness, it's helpful to identify the area that requires the most attention. For myself, I've found it helpful to concentrate on one dimension at a time, as it makes the process of change more manageable and less overwhelming.
Remember, you're not alone on this journey. Your support system is there to help you. If you're focusing on your physical wellness, consider training and eating with a battle buddy. If emotional wellness is your goal, spend more private time with someone close to you, like your spouse. For spiritual wellness, find a mentor to guide you. Sharing your goals with someone else can help you stay on track and feel less isolated on your wellness journey.
Wellness is a conscious, self-directed, and evolving process that requires determination and patience. When you stay focused, your determination and patience will pay off.
