World Wellbeing Week 2022 – June 27 / July 01
Today marks the start of World Wellbeing Week 2022, a yearly campaign which gives us the opportunity to raise awareness for all factors promoting wellbeing. Whether it’s meaningful work filled with purpose and gratification, to financial security, physical, mental and emotional health, compassionate leadership, employee and environmental care. Welfare has never been so important to our working life and our personal lives.
What is Wellbeing?
Wellbeing is most commonly started with feelings of control over our lives, purposefulness and life satisfaction. This is fostered by positive relationships, financial security and physical health. Furthermore, it’s also fostered by physical activity and spending time appreciating our environment. It’s something we’re always looking for, whether consciously or subconsciously, wellbeing is something which affects every part of our lives – from our personal lives to our working lives, even our sleep. It’s more than a checkbox though and involves a complex mix of physical, psychological and lifestyle factors.
Positive wellbeing can be difficult to achieve however, with one in five (21%) adults aged 16 years and over having experienced some form of depression in early 2021. It’s clear to see that we need to be proactive in making sure we’re doing everything we can to foster a positive wellbeing, knowing what negatively affects us so we can then avoid it.
Steps to Positive Wellbeing
As described above, positive wellbeing is impacted by our levels of life satisfaction, purpose and control over our lives. You can ask yourself several questions to find out more about your mental wellbeing:
- Are you looking forward to the future?
- Do you feel useful, whether in your work life or your personal life?
- How often do you feel relaxed?
- Are you invested in your social relationships?
- Are you energised?
- Are you stressed?
- Do you feel good about yourself?
- Do you feel loved?
- Do you feel valued?
- Are you interested in trying new things?
- Are you happy?
Your responses to these questions will help roughly gauge the state of their wellbeing. If you would like an in-depth overview of your answers, you can speak with a professional. Whatever your response however, we can always work to further improve our wellbeing.
Positive Factors to Positive Wellbeing
Connect with People
Our relationships with other people are critical to our wellbeing. Building and maintaining positive social relationships can greatly improve and then sustain your wellbeing. They give us an opportunity to share positive experiences, create new memories as well as being there as a support network for you or for you to them, which also promotes the feeling of being valued. Regularly taking time with our friends and family, with minimal distractions, can help immensely with our mental health in the long run. You can reach out to old friends, engage in new hobbies or volunteer to meet new people. Technology is key as it helps greatly with staying connected.
Be Physically Active
Exercise helps foster physical health, helping us become fitter and improving our integral health, but it also greatly improves our mental wellbeing. Exercise can raise our self-esteem, boosts our confidence, makes us feel proactive and releases chemical reactions in our brain which boosts our mood. Regular physical activity can also help us sleep, leading to a wealth of physical and mental benefits. It may also encourage you to consume a healthier diet, which alone has a plethora of positive wellbeing contributors.
Learn New Skills
Learning new skills can also improve your mental wellbeing by improving your self-confidence and your self-esteem. Engaging in new hobbies is a great way to learn new skills, which then helps foster new social interactions and create new friends. Learning a new skill doesn’t have to take thousands of hours either, it can be as small as learning a new recipe, reading a new book or working on a DIY project, but the implications can be hugely beneficial.
Being Kind
The act of giving and general kindness can foster positive wellbeing and a sense of value. It also boosts feelings of being needed and self-worth. It can be through small acts of kindness or larger acts impacting a community, but ultimately helping other people is a certain way of reinforcing our own positive mindset as well as improving other people’s.
Be Present
Being present in the moment stimulates our mental wellbeing and ensures that we go through a rabbit hole which may encourage feelings of negativity. Being present means paying attention to yourself, your mental state and your environment. It helps us enjoy life and appreciate it through reflection. It can also alter our perspective towards life’s hurdles, helping us overcome challenges.
Going Forward
How we assess our wellbeing isn’t always dependent on our immediate surroundings, but how we perceive them. This glass half-empty or half-full mindset will alter how we perceive our surroundings. It is worth noting that this mindset will change day by day as we proceed through our lives, as we always encounter high moments and low moments. But promoting positive wellbeing means making these low moments as infrequent as possible.
If you feel like your employee’s wellbeing is potentially lower than it is higher, it may be useful seeking professional help through a counselor or therapist. Professionals can help expertly assess their feelings and know the best steps going forward to improve your overall wellbeing, helping target pain-points which are negatively impacting your mental health and changing the way they might experience these situations.
A good place to start is by getting in touch with us, so we can help you and discuss the next steps to help your team.
