What is Wellness?


 Happy 2026 everyone! I'm back with a blog that I have thought a lot about recently.

What exactly is WELLNESS?

It's a term that is becoming increasingly popular in many industries, you see it all over the lorries that carry Holland and Barrett goods, and they have been in the business of wellness for ever! I see it on social media posts (not just my own) it seems that everyone is jumping on the 'wellness bandwagon' as more and more people are getting concerned about their mental and physical health.

OXFORD DICTIONARY

Wellness - the state of being in good health, especially as an actively pursued goal.


That doesn't give much away does it? Let's dig a little deeper.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) who I actually wouldn't trust with my health even if you paid me defines wellness as - a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being, and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.


Do we really know anyone who is actually in a state of wellness according to that definition? 


Let's get on to the supposed 'four types of wellness!'

Spiritual wellness - emotional wellness - physical wellness - social wellness

What do we think of them?

I would say from that there are only two types of wellness, those pertaining to the body and those pertaining to the mind. Spiritual, emotional and social are all states of mind, relating to your mental health. Physical wellness relating to the body as a whole, as a machine.


Definitions continue if you look hard enough on a search engine, but they all say to me the same thing, there are not any more types of wellness than the two above, and actually, they work together as one in reality, so maybe there is only one type of wellness, complete mind and body wellness? This is what I truly believe, because they work together so well, when you are mentally stable, your body reacts, and vice versa.

What does interest me is the labelling of social wellness - not something that many people speak of. We are social creatures, those communities that thrive in the world, social interaction is one of the main things that they have. Going to church, gathering friends and family around, meeting neighbours, doing social events as a community. We are losing this rapidly, and the lockdowns that we endured in 2020/2021 are significantly to blame for this.

Young adults and teenagers really suffered being taken out from school, elderly residents couldn't meet with each  other, isolation broke humanity and it has not yet recovered. We NEED social interaction for our mental health, when you are sat day in day out on your own, you only have yourself to reason with, you need the opinions and conversations of others to establish what is right and wrong. This is why local community activities are key.

Some of those activities may involve exercise, therefore giving you physical wellbeing, doing activity in a social setting gives you the double! 

This could be a very long blog if I went into everything I believe that is good for complete wellness, but here is my run-down on activities and things you could be doing in every day life that could help you to achieve complete wellness.

Get enough sleep.

Have a routine to your day.

Read, test your mind with a book or crossword.

Meet with people, daily! Even if it's just a chat with a neighbour or going to the shop and starting a conversation.

Exercise - preferably outside if you can and with others if that's possible, even a local walking group.

Eat complete nutrition - all the food groups, cut out sugar, alcohol and processed foods and drink adequate water.

Practice mindfulness, even just for 5-10 minutes, take time out, empty your head and breathe.

Talk about your problems with someone or write them down. There are plenty of helplines and charities that are always there 24 hours a day.

Stay positive!


That's the briefest run-down I could give, but try as much as you can to follow this, it really will give benefit to your life, and add WELLNESS to it.

Make sure you get in touch too, let me know what you think wellness is and what it means to you.

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