Did you know Wellness is the fastest growing sector in the economy and is worth over $3.7 TRILLION dollars. Astounding isn’t it. People are now making more time to invest in their own health and wellbeing – for now and also for the future. Great subject to inform yourself about.
History of Wellbeing or Wellness
We can trace the history of Wellbeing back to 3,000 BC Ayurvedic Hindu texts, Traditional Chinese Medicine and the father of modern medicine Hippocrates in 500 BC. [1]
- Homeopathy emerged in the 1790’s,
- Osteopathy and Chiropractic in the 1870’s and 1890’s
- Naturopathy in 1900’s
- Halbert Dunn’s: High-Level Wellness 1961
- John Travis’: The Wellness Inventory 1975, The Wellness Workbook 1977
What is Wellness?
John Travis proposed Wellness as a dynamic concept which sits on an Illness-Wellness Continuum. His measure of Wellness encompasses mental and emotional health. High-level wellness reflects optimal physical, emotional and mental status.
Wellness starts with self-love
Self-responsibility and love start with loving and respecting yourself. This requires total acceptance of who you are with all your strength and weaknesses and all your imperfections. Treating yourself as you would your best mate with care and love. It requires awareness and vigilance to recognise the messages your body is sending you so. Then you can take action when there is a small reminder rather than waiting until an occasional headache turns in to a chronic migraine.
It is all about clearly seeing the reality of one’s situation, maturely and responsibly. It requires you to be clear about what you are seeking out of life. You can achieve this through your intentions, thoughts, and actions. It helps to make to your intentions is crystal clear to those with whom you interact and particularly with those whom you love.
Moving towards Wellness
To move from where you to somewhere better requires a dispassionate and thorough understanding of all the attributes and foundations of the shortcoming that you wish to change. So if you were a smoker, it would be important to understand why you smoked, what comfort it delivers. And how you could cope with the loss of comfort before you could successfully give up. Of course, before any changes to the energy balance can be made, it is important to really examine the emotional underpinnings to a pattern you wish to shift before I can make a change.
The real work to facilitate a real change to the energy balance is always in this deeper area and it is very often necessary to go right back to one’s childhood or even beyond, back to the ancestral stuff if you are to be successful in shifting one of the bigger energy blockages. In my experience, it is rarely enough to simply address the unwanted symptom – rather it is important to understand the full context of the underlying patterns and then to address the whole.
Do you want to live longer and feel better?
This is the title of a wonderful book by scientist Linus Pauling who is the only individual to win two solo Nobel prizes. He coined the term orthomolecular medicine to describe the role of nutrition as an essential support to a healthy lifestyle. Pauling recommended avoiding added sugar, stress and smoking, keep active, work in a job you like and connect happily with your family. [2] I follow Pauling’s suggestions for supplements to sustain health and immunity, particularly this suggestions around vitamin C and L-Lysine. It is a good idea to avoid very sugary processed foods because they activate the same part of the brain that is turn on by crack cocaine. [3]
Leo Galland’s Wellbeing prescription
Leo is a pioneer of integrative medicine which combines the best of alternative and conventional medicine. His prescription the Four Pillars of Healing [4] is quite similar to Pauling’s:
- Nurture relationships, group activities and eat meals together
- Regular physical exercise
- Get enough sleep
- Get quiet and relax for fifteen minutes a day
- Minimise alcohol, drugs, and medications
- Be aware of environmental hazards
- Inform yourself about the side effects of any medications
- Diet rich in detox vegetables – broccoli, carrots, tomatoes, avocado, Brussel sprouts, cabbage, nuts, and seeds.
Tom Rath and Jim Harter analysed Gallup data from 150 countries and discovered five universal elements that make life worthwhile and underpin lifetime Wellbeing. Australia ranks 10th out of 130 countries:[5]
- Career – is closely linked to identity, self-esteem. But how many of us love our work? I am shocked by how many young people I meet chose a field of study that they do not enjoy.
- Social – wellbeing is influenced by your entire network. Being connected is good and being happily connected is much better.
- Financial – the strongest Wellbeing effects are purchases of experiences, gifts to others.
- Physical – Move 30 minutes every day, sleep enough to feel rested, eat red green and blue natural foods.
- Community – Contribute, connect, communicate and join events and groups
If you would like to take the next step with Harry Armytage, complete the listening scorecard here
To find out more about what Sally Estlin does, head here
Suggested reading:
1: Evolution of Wellness, Global Wellness Institute
2: Linus Pauling, How to live longer and feel better, Osu Press, 1986
3: Harvard study quoted in Doidge, N. The Brain’s Way of Healing, p336.
4; Leo Galland, Power healing, Random House, 1997
5: Tom Rath and Jim Harper, Wellbeing, Gallup Press, 2010
5: John Travis and Regina Ryan, Wellness Workbook, 2nd Ed, Ten Speed Press,1988
Greg Anderson, The 22 {non-negotiable} Laws of Wellness, HarperOne, 1996
Photo by Marion Michele on Unsplash