What is wellness and why is it important?

Wellness is primarily being in good physical and mental health. Because mental health and physical health are so closely linked, problems in one area can impact the other. At the same time, improving your physical health can also benefit your mental health and other life domains, and vice versa. It is important to be aware that wellness is an intentional, ongoing and holistic approach to making healthy choices for in eight major areas of life functioning.  

More than a year and a half ago, impacts to every aspect of student individual and relational wellness occurred in unprecedented ways due to the pandemic. The most evident is living life while taking precautions, masked and medically protected by the vaccine, but it has left no domain of wellness untouched. We invite you to reflect on what it may mean now to “Let Your Wellness Flow” with creativity, self-compassion, and collective understanding of each other. The intention is not to suggest that we now have additional things to do to feel better, but that we have options; new, optimistic ways to navigate what it means to be intentionally, holistically well while feeling the impact of so much change and challenge.      

Mandala with the words "Let Your Wellness Flow"

The pandemic has underscored the ways in which our physical bodies carry not just general stress, but traumatic stress. Increased fatigue, difficulty sleeping, or tension headaches and body aches are all common signs that we may be carrying traumatic adjustment stress or ongoing COVID-19 related stress. The diversity among us means that we may feel different things differently in our bodies than people we know. 

Self-Care for Physical Wellness:  Consider new types of physical activities that you have never tried before, or maybe something that you have always wanted to try but just have not had the time. If you are a runner, maybe consider interspersing it with walking. If you are a walker, maybe consider listening to a meditation as you walk. If you do neither, consider incorporating gentle stretches while studying. Having positive and curious conversations with family and friends about their physical wellness may prompt new ways to consider strategies for ourselves. 

A year ago, religious/spiritual practice pivoted dramatically as spiritual and religious communities began to offer services like preaching, prayer, and meditation—even hospital bedside visits—virtually. Worshippers have mourned the loss of holy space and communal practices, especially during holy seasons like Passover, Easter, and Ramadan, and on other occasions when the community assembles in solidarity. 

Self-Care for Spiritual Wellness: Explore creative ways to access spiritual/religious communities; engage in informal spirituality/religious discussion groups via Zoom; consult with spiritual/religious elders for advice and support for navigating during this time; consider ways that we can find spiritual community that transcends being physically present with others. 

The need for social distancing, for some of us, can feel confusing and disconnecting, especially if a large part of our self-care has been social engagement. Humans are biologically wired to seek connection, attunement, and validation in relationships. While we may cognitively know the importance of maintaining a safe distance and meeting virtually with others, our human attachment systems struggle with feeling less intimate, making more effort, and exacerbating of feelings of disconnection and isolation. Social whiplash from normal, to quarantine, to normal with masks, to quarantine, to who knows . . .  can be overwhelming.

Self-Care for Social Wellness: Consider if talking about this with our safe supports or within safe relationships can be helpful. Having another person alongside when we feel confused and disconnected without comparison or judgement is the essence of social wellness. Maybe during such conversations, we pause if there is a strong emotional response, showing gratitude when we normally would just continue.  At other times, saying hello to classmates; creating technology-free times during the day. Maybe even deciding “Do I need advice right now or do I just want someone to listen?”, and then identifying and connecting with an available social resource for this to happen. 

Occupational Wellness is recognizing and accessing personal satisfaction and enrichment in one’s life through work. During the pandemic, this area of wellness has been significantly redefined and accelerated in areas related to our work environments. Without being in healthy, productive spaces, occupational wellness is compromised. Without the reassurance of collective socially responsible behavior, clear action, and communication, morale and trust erodes. 

Self-Care for Occupational Wellness: Have clear boundaries around issues at work to prevent them spilling into other areas of life. Consider a different workspace that is closer to a sunny window. If a tech update is needed for the work that you do, explore if resources exist for this. Request clarification for workplace COVID-19 precautions and express your needs for safety. Most importantly, prioritize your health if you are able to take time off due to illness. 

Intellectual knowledge is engaging in creative and mentally stimulating activities, learning, and skills building around expanding and sharing knowledge with others. Not feeling intellectually stimulated can affect the production of chemicals in the brain that can cause us to feel happiness and excitement to engage in learning. 

Self-Care for Intellectual Wellness: In your (minimal) spare time, research a topic of interest that you have never had time for before the pandemic. Study with someone who has a different major and help them “talk it out” with you and vice versa. Consider what you would do differently in your field of interest and future occupation. Consider whether academic support is needed during this phase of the pandemic.

Accessing enriching space around our immediate and outer environments has played a major role during the last year and a half. We have had to turn to safer outdoors for joint activities. When we need to social distance, we often spend indoors, limiting our contact with others. The space to gather and be with others positively and safely while we are engaged in an activity or task underscores the importance of that very space. The people, places, attitudes, and ideas that surround us in daily life also define our environmental wellness.

Self-Care for Environmental Wellness:  Keep in touch with your community: family, friends, teachers, mentors. Be open to having conversations with people you are living around about how much time and space you need to be comfortable. Especially for the more introverted among us, it is important to stand up for your alone time to reconnect and re-energize throughout the day. What noise level is acceptable for you? Do you need to have conversations with your roommates/family about noise? Being outside helps get vitamin D and releases endorphins, all-important for maintaining mental and physical health. 

The pandemic has forced us to take urgent stock of our cultural wellness as individuals and as a whole. Inequality fueled by structural oppression and racism continues to harm people around us, people we know and people we do not know.  American Indian, African American, and Latino/x persons are three times more likely to be hospitalized and twice as likely to die from Covid-19 as Whites. Similarly, Black and Latino/x communities are receiving smaller shares of vaccines compared to cases and deaths. In a place of crossroads, where 2000+ diverse young adults from near and far come together for their education, are human beings that come from many, many places and experiences and contribute to the collective culture of the community. 

Self-Care for Cultural Wellness: Seek various perspectives, facts, stories, experiences. Interact with peers that are different, and be curious about your own personal culture, family rituals, and traditions, all which the research shows, improves wellness. Maybe this would be a good time to consider attending culturally related conversations on campus. Taking time to reflect on our internal biases that we act on based on stereotypes of ethnicity, gender, religion, or sexual orientation is a simple but significant strategy in our pursuit of wellness in this area.     

Paradoxically, our stress is helping us cope, bond together from a physical distance as best we can, and slow the spread of the virus. While uncomfortable, it can be a source of resilience, especially if managed well. At the same time, it’s important to stay informed, but prevent inner or outer panic contagion and create periods when we can be screen-free and calm, engaging our attention in present-moment activities.

Self-Care for Emotional Wellness: The emotional challenge of the last year and a half means that we are human with inner experiences. Prioritizing our emotional wellness may now mean that we go back to basics. Getting enough rest. Eating throughout the day to sustain energy. Slowing down if we feel more tired than usual. And “stepping back” periodically to remember that everything felt internally is valid and expected after going through so much.