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What is Wellbeing?
The World Health Organisation defines mental health as ‘a state of wellbeing in which every individual realises his or her own potential, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and fruitfully and is able to make a contribution to her or his community.’
A strong sense of wellbeing contributes to good mental health and helps to protect us from feelings of hopelessness and depression, acting as a ‘guardian’ of our mental health. A strong sense of wellbeing allows us to flourish and empowers us to thrive in different aspects of our lives. However, wellbeing isn’t as straightforward as just being ‘happy’ and flourishing. It’s multi-faceted and a continuous process.
Working to better our well being could look like:
- Setting healthy boundaries
- Being mindful and focused on the present
- Allowing ourselves to feel and process both positive and negative emotions
- Building and nourishing our self-esteem/self-worth
- Feeling connected to our minds and bodies
- Improving how we find and sustain energy
- Cultivating a healthy and kind body image / body confidence
- Understanding the importance and improving our self-awareness / insight (understanding personal obstacles)
- Getting the balancing act of life right: Sleep, our needs, food, friends, work, and most importantly avoiding extremes
- Forming good habits that support our growth and set us up for success
Sadly, the above activities aren’t provided in a life guide book and aren’t often modelled to us by our social connections, depending on how we were raised or what we have endured.
That’s where therapy comes in. Therapy acts as a great place to start if we feel we’re lacking in any of the above components of our lives. By improving our wellbeing we can stay resilient when times get tough, build social support and self-efficacy; and come out the other side of challenges even stronger because we know we can cope with adversity.