Living a full life is all about experiencing a sense of purpose and engagement in a person’s life. For most of us, this sense of fulfillment comes from a variety of sources, and learning to properly balance each of them leads to a full, well-rounded life. Research supports the importance of having healthy connections within a variety of wellness areas in order to live a full and balanced lifestyle physically, mentally, and emotionally.
Wellness as a whole is commonly broken down into eight different dimensions, which together can help build a well-rounded and balanced life and sense of wellbeing.
The dimensions include: Emotional wellness, physical wellness, social wellness, occupational wellness, spiritual wellness, intellectual wellness, environmental wellness, and financial wellness.
Each of these dimensions are interdependent, and are both connected to and influence each other. Keeping all dimensions in a healthy balance will help to create a stronger sense of overall well-being.
Understanding the full picture of wellness is essential to experiencing a high quality of life and well-rounded life experience. Beyond mental health and physical health, understanding each of these dimensions of wellness expands the understanding of overall health to include personal values, spiritual well-being, social interactions, personal satisfaction and healthy habits which span a wide range of activities.
The Eight Dimensions of Wellness Explained:
Emotional wellness:
Learning to manage emotions, process life events appropriately, and direct feelings in response to things around us is critical to the emotional side of wellness. This can be developed with counseling, humor, and even techniques for stress management so that our emotions don’t get the best of us, but help us relate and connect with others instead.
Emotional wellness can consist of self-care, relationships with others - including having a strong emotional support network - and being in-touch with feelings and emotions.
Intellectual Wellness:
Intellectual wellbeing includes critical thinking, lifelong learning and discovery. Keeping our minds stimulated and active can help stave off cognitive decline. Daily crosswords, good books, classes, writing, educational classes and other activities that stimulate intellect all work in helping to maintain our wellness.
Physical Wellness:
Physical wellness is one of the best understood dimensions. Including physical activity in our daily or weekly routines is a vital part of maintaining a healthy lifestyle, and keeping our bodies working at their peak. The more we stay active, seek to maintain a healthy diet, and get enough sleep, the better we will feel and the more apt we will be to engage in the other dimensions of wellness.
Physical health is not only about athletics. It’s less about being a top athlete, and more about moving your body consistently. Keeping an ongoing physical routine can help with overall health, mobility, flexibility, dexterity and physical resiliency. it is also important to eat healthy food, as a well balanced diet will help keep us strong and healthy - especially as we age.
Occupational Wellness:
We all have skills that when used properly contribute to the good of those around us. For most of us, that involves our career choice and how we’ve selected to make our mark on the world. Having a sense of purpose and drive is a significant part of a balanced wellness model. Occupational wellness also includes a good work-life balance, building relationships with coworkers, and managing work-related stress.
But occupational wellness isn’t always strictly tied to a traditional sense of a job or career. In a greater sense, it is about finding personal satisfaction and enrichment in your life through work and meaningful activity.
Even after retirement, many of us have a desire to contribute from a vocational standpoint and to find things that will keep us feeling connected and useful to the world around us. This can include volunteer work or teaching a skill or activity to others. Contributing your skills and talents to an activity you find meaningful and rewarding can satisfy the realm of occupational wellness without the strict lines of a traditional career.
Financial Wellness
Financial wellness includes financial well-being. It is less about wealth in itself, and more about comfortably managing expenses like bills and necessities, planning for potential emergency financial situations, avoiding or managing debts, and planning financially for long-term goals.
Social Wellness:
Social wellness (sometimes called behavioral health) is all about connections with others and building healthy relationships. Building and maintaining a support system of peers, friends, loved ones or mentors is important to creating a rounded satisfying relationships. Social wellness is also closely linked to emotional wellness. Companionship, camaraderie and connection with others is a key component to overall wellness.
Joining a club, an organization, or just spending time with family and friends can help boost our social wellness. Humans are naturally creatures who thrive on companionship and flourish with regular interaction with those around us. Social interactions can help improve communication skills, relationship building, emotional intelligence, and a sense of connection and belonging.
Spiritual Wellness:
More than anything, spiritual wellness is about having an expanded sense of meaning both individual and in the world at large. it is strongly connected to an individual’s morals and ethics. For many, spiritual wellness is linked to religion, but can also be about living with purpose and connecting to a larger sense of the world around us. A belief in a something greater than ourselves, or of shared meaning and values is also part of spiritual wellbeing.
This may be exercised through worship services, mediation, or mindfulness activities. All have a positive effect on allowing us to seek purpose higher than ourselves.
Environmental Wellness:
Environmental wellness has two main aspects to it. In one sense, it is about good health promotion by surrounding yourself with healthy, positive, and stimulating personal environments.
In a larger sense, environmental wellness is also about having a healthy relationship with our planet and its resources. Being intentional about reducing environmental hazards like pollutants, chemicals and even noise, or promoting positive connections with our environment will help promote other aspects of wellness.
How does Pacifica Senior Living use the dimensions of wellness to better the lives of residents?
At Pacifica Senior Living we seek to engage our residents in a well-rounded approach to wellbeing by accessing each of these wellness dimensions. Our activities, programs and therapies focus on wellness initiatives. This offers our residents a wide range of programming and events that meet each dimension, further fulfilling their needs for complete wellness.
We also ensure residents have a comprehensive interest assessment within the early stages of their arrival at one of our communities. This allows us to connect their life experiences to activities that will allow them to find true engagement and renewed purpose in our communities.
We firmly believe moving into one of our unique communities is a new beginning filled with opportunities to find renewed purpose in each of the dimensions of wellness.
We offer transportation to local churches and places of worship for many of our communities and this is one of the most common ways for our residents to get spiritual enrichment.
We focus on social enrichment in many ways, through happy hours, community events, games nights etc. Environmental wellness can come from activities like gardening, or even spending time in nature, while physical wellness is addressed through exercise classes or walking clubs. Crosswords, memory or strategy games, and trivia events are great ways to stimulate the mind for mental wellness, and we offer many volunteer opportunities such as resident ambassador opportunities so that residents can fulfill their occupational and vocational needs even in retirement.
Offering activities that fill one or more of the wellness categories allows our residents to live a full well rounded life.
Engaging each of these aspects and dimensions helps to build a more complete and full life, and we make it our goal to offer a range of programs to fit everyone’s preferences and needs.
Come out and visit your local community to see our activities first hand, or join us for one of our many community events. There is always something happening at Pacifica Senior Living and we'd love for you to get involved!
