Wellbeing means feeling good with yourself, the world around you, and functioning well most of the time in your life.
More precisely wellbeing means keeping a balance between your physical, mental, emotional, and social health conditions. Therefore wellbeing is fully connected to happiness and life satisfaction so it needs to maintain and nurture.
There are many ways in which you can maintain a high level of well-being. Here are 12 simple but very powerful steps to improve your wellbeing.
12 Steps for Wellbeing
1. Be kind to yourself
Your genes, upbringing, culture, religion, education, gender, sexuality, beliefs, and life experiences make you who you are. We all have bad days, but you need to be kind to yourself. Learn to encourage rather than criticize yourself. Treat yourself the way you would treat a person you love the most.
2. Connect with others
Make time each day to connect. Firstly, stay in touch with family and friends – make regular and frequent contact with them. Connect also with the people around you. Don’t be afraid, start a conversation with colleagues and neighbors or other people in your local community. By staying connected and nurturing these relationships you are going to feel happier and more secure, giving you a better sense of purpose.
3. Exercise regularly
Being active helps lift your mood, reduces stress and anxiety, improves physical health, and gives you more energy. Discover a physical activity you enjoy which suits your lifestyle and level of mobility and fitness. Get outside, preferably in a green space or near water. Research has shown being physically active can improve your mental health and wellbeing.
4. Take up a hobby and learn a new skill
Having a hobby that you enjoy brings you joy and pleasure in your lives. It gives you something fun to do during your leisure time and affords you the opportunity to learn new skills. In fact, everyone enjoys doing some hobby. Learning new skills helps to gain different experiences, trains your brain to handle a wide range of challenges, and keeps your neural pathways active.
5. Be creative and have some fun
Being creative gives you opportunities to try out new ideas, and new ways of thinking and problem-solving. Creative activities help you acknowledge and celebrate your own uniqueness and variety. Creativity encourages self-expression, a way to create something from personal feelings and experiences. Having fun releases serotonin which makes you feel happy and dopamine which makes you more enthusiastic and talkative. Both of those chemicals ensure that your brain is healthy. Having fun or being creative helps you feel better and increases your confidence. Enjoy yourself!
6. Help others
Do something nice for someone else. Volunteer your time or join a community group. Seeing yourself and your happiness linked to the wider community can be incredibly rewarding and create connectedness with the people around you. Get involved with a community project, charity work, or simply help out someone you know. As well as helping others, you‟ll be doing something worthwhile which will help you feel better about
yourself.
7. Relax
Make time for yourself. Allow yourself to chill out and relax. Find something that suits you –different things work for different people. When you relax, the flow of blood increases around your body giving you more energy. It helps to have a calmer and clearer mind which aids positive thinking, concentration, memory, and decision making. Relaxation slows your heart rate, reduces blood pressure, and relieves tension.
8. Eat healthily
Eat regularly, eat breakfast, eat healthily, eat fruit and vegetables, drink water. A healthy diet is essential for good health. It protects you against many chronic diseases, such as heart disease, diabetes, and cancer. Consuming a variety of foods and consuming less salt, sugars, and saturated and industrially-produced trans-fats, are essential for your health.
9. Balance sleep
Sleep is vital, often ignored, a component of every person’s overall health and well-being. Sleep is important because it enables the body to repair and be fit and ready for another day. Getting adequate sleeping may also help prevent increased illness duration. Get into a healthy sleep routine – including going to bed and getting up at the same time each day.
10. Be aware of taking drink and drugs
Avoid using alcohol (or non-prescribed drugs) to help you cope – it will only add to your problems. Alkohol or moreover drugs change the way your brain works. This can lead to depression, anxiety, and other mental illnesses. If you already have a mental health issue, drugs can worsen your condition. The best way to deal with stress is to confront it without using alcohol or worst drugs.
11. See the bigger picture
We all give different meanings to situations and see things from our point of view. Broaden out your perspective and consider the bigger picture („the helicopter view‟). When you have some kind of a problem, ask yourself: What meaning am I giving this? Is this fact or only my opinion? How would others see it? Is there another way of looking at this? How important is it, or will it be in a year‟s time? What can I do right now that will help most?
12. Accepting: ‘I can’t change it so It is as it is’
We tend to fight against distressing thoughts and feelings, but we can learn to just notice them and give up that struggle. You just can‟t change some situations. You can “surf those waves” rather than try to stop them.
Allow those thoughts and sensations just to be –they will pass as always.
