Wellness refers to the idea and practice of changing your day-to-day lifestyle to create healthy habits that are conducive with improved physical and mental health. Wellness doesn’t just mean overcoming mental health disorders or being physically fit, it is a comprehensive and complete change in your life that encourages personal growth and improved well-being.
Achieving wellness can be done in many different ways, some of these strategies can include exercise, yoga, meditation, essential oils, therapy, and other mindfulness practices.
Before we take a look at the ways in which you can achieve wellness and improved physical and mental health, let’s first work to better understand what wellness actually is.
Wellness Definition
Wellness is defined as “the quality or state of being in good health especially as an actively sought goal,” according to Merriam Webster.
While it may be beneficial to understand the connotation associated with the term, it can be helpful to know what the term literally means as well.
Great, now that we understand what wellness is, how do we get there? How do we get to this improved state of health?
How to Achieve Wellness
Wellness can be achieved in many different ways — just like there is no one way to exercise, there is no one way to achieve wellness.
But, if you are looking to get in a healthier state of body and state of mind, there are a few ways you can get started.
Here are three things you can start today that will help you tomorrow:
Yoga – Yoga, and exercise in general, is a common practice used by people who are trying to achieve enhanced enlightenment in their lives. It has been shown to help improve physical and mental health. Yoga is an ancient practice that developed in the Eastern world. It has since evolved and taken on many different forms. Yoga in the United States typically consists of an array of postures and breathing techniques.
The practice of yoga has shown to improve back and neck pain, manage and ease depressive and anxiety symptoms, relieve stress, improve sleep, and more. Honestly, after doing some research and learning about all the benefits that this form of exercise has to offer, it’s no wonder it has become more popular in recent years.
Yoga has also been shown to be a meditative technique, helping people achieve increasing quality of life, which actually brings us to our next strategy.
Meditation – Meditation is one of the most common and useful mindfulness practices that can help improve not only your mental functioning, but physical health as well. There is tons of evidence that shows that meditation can be good for numerous things in the body.
It can help with pain reception, high blood pressure, irritable bowel syndrome, and more. Not to mention the good it can do for your brain and mental health. Studies have shown that the simple mind and body practice of meditation can help reduce anxiety, depression, and can even help you stop smoking.
Therapy – Therapy is always an option for people who are struggling with their mental health. While therapy is often used when mental health issues begin to interfere with day-to-day life and someone needs to seek professional help, it is something that can truly be beneficial for anyone.
People can go to therapy for many different reasons and during that time be exposed to many different techniques. People often think of therapy as a back-and-forth talk between a trained therapist and a client, but it is far more complex than that.
The style of therapy is entirely dependent upon the problems of the individual. That said, cognitive behavioral therapy, or CBT, is one of the most common and effective methods of talk therapy. It works by rewiring the way the brain thinks about certain stimuli that may be contributing to your problem and rerouting this communication to think about it in a different and positive way.
These are just three of the common methods of improving wellness. This doesn’t even touch on things like general exercise, essential oils, eating healthy, sleeping, and more.
How Do I Get Started?
So you made it this far, no what?
How do you get started on some of these things?
It may feel like a big step to begin meditating or exercising every day or every other day, and it is. However, the trick is to not get bogged down with the process, don’t let it intimidate you. Here are a few methods that you can take to get started on implementing a life change like the ones listed above.
Set a Start Date
One way that you can get started is to set a specific start date. Look at your calendar and choose a day in the near future and tell yourself “That’s the day.”
No more excuses, no more reschedules. That’s the day that you start.
Whether it is exercise, meditation, quitting drinking, or something else, this is a good way to get started on the plan that you’ve gone through in your head again and again.
Start Slow
Look, just because you are making a life change doesn’t mean it has to be a complete turn around. You can always start slow and work your way up to where you want to be. In fact, this might even be the best option.
If you are looking to try to get into exercising more, maybe start your first day with a short walk around the neighborhood in the morning or evening. From there, you can maybe do two walks a day, one at each time. Then maybe a run, then you sign up for a gym membership.
Or maybe you are trying to get into meditation. You can always find a short 3-minute video on Youtube that you can watch right before bed. From there you can seek out more ways to implement the practice into your life.
Whatever you decide to do, you can ALWAYS start out slow and build your way up to see the major change that you want. Even starting small will give you benefits and improvements in your life.
Tell Your Friends
Telling your friends and family about your new goal or new lifestyle is a good way to stick to your plan. It will give you some added pressure to follow through with your plan of action. While pressure can be a bit daunting, it is sometimes necessary if you truly want to see some change.
This is also a good way to go about it because, who knows? Maybe your friends who were also planning on making a change will want to join in with you. If you are planning to start going to the gym, mentioning it to a group of close friends can be the motivation THEY need to sign up and tag along.
Whatever strategy you implement to start making the change in your life, do it as soon as possible. If there is an urge or craving in your body to change something about the way that you are living for the better, the longer you put it off, the more it will haunt you throughout the days, months, and even years.
There is no better time to start than today.
“You may delay; but, time will not.”
-Benjamin Franklin
What Is The Wellness Elephant?
The Wellness Elephant is a brand that is dedicated to being your source of knowledge on all things wellness related. If it can improve your physical or mental health, we want to be there helping you better understand it.
The Wellness Elephant’s goal is to reach and improve the lives of as many people as possible. We only do that through the help of our community. If you are interested in learning more about us, please visit Our Philosophy page. Otherwise, please give us a like or share on social media. A little goes a long way.
The Wellness Elephant 