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Image description: Dimensions of wellness - Emotional, physical, intellectual and social - image created by Prachi SalviWhat is Wellness?
Wellness is a way to address and make changes to certain aspects of your life that will lead to healthier physical, emotional, and social outcomes.
These changes look and feel different for everyone. Developing your wellness strategy is about discovering what is best for you and how to easily sustain these changes for long-term health and well-being.
The Wellness Wheel is a visual representation of how interrelated all aspects of your life are and how they impact your well-being.
It is important to consider each area of the wheel and how it will impact your wellness. Neglecting one of the dimensions of Wellness may prevent you from finding a healthy balance in your life.
Physical Wellness is how you take care of your body and listen to what it is telling you so that you can optimize your health. Maintaining your physical health and Wellness can be achieved by:
Regular exercise – Athletics & Recreation
Balanced nutrition
Sleep patterns
Safe sexual health – Gender-Based Sexual Violence information
Illness prevention – Seneca Medical Centre
Stress management
Take advantage of sunlight; spend more time outside
Implementing these important steps into your daily life not only improves your physical health, but also your mental health.
Critical and creative thinking, and being open to new ideas and ideologies are all ways to adopt and maintain intellectual Wellness. Developing your cognitive and intellectual skills is a critical component of overall Wellness. Many activities contribute to developing skills to train your brain, they include:
Working on your time management – Learning Centre
Financial security
Understanding school/life balance
Addressing loneliness and homesickness
Feeling challenged/motivated
Feeling inspired
Achieving academic goals
Improving your observation skills
Developing your curiosity and learning new things
Breaking out of your comfort zone
Having positive and healthy connections with family, friends, teachers, classmates, teammates, coaches, and others is defined as Social Wellness.
Essentially, social well-being is focusing on building and engaging in trusting, respectful, and authentic relationships.
Whether you are on a sports team, in an online community, or participating in School activities, human beings are social creatures that need to connect to one another. To improve your Social Wellness, consider:
Connecting with other students and the Seneca community – there are so many ways to connect at Seneca:
Seneca Student Federation (SSF)
Peer Mentoring
Athletics & Recreation
Student Life
International student workshops and activities
Talking (not texting) with friends and family
Appreciating diversity
Developing your help-seeking skills (asking for help when you need it)
Practicing active listening
Emotional Wellness centers on thoughts, feelings, and being able to have a positive outlook on life. Another critical aspect of Emotional Wellness is to express and process emotions in a healthy way. When negative emotions arise, it is important that you have an outlet to express them in a safe way. This can include:
Talking to friends and family
Journaling – consider starting a gratitude journal
Listening to music
Counselling – Personal Counselling and Accessible Learning Services
Exercising – Athletics & Recreation
Self-care
Developing Help-Seeking Behaviours in Dimensions of Wellness
Being optimistic can be difficult during hard times, engaging in conversation or a favorite activity can reverse those feelings and bring you back to a regular state of emotional wellness.
Spiritual wellness may not be something that you think much of, yet its impact on your life is unavoidable. The basis of spirituality is discovering a sense of meaningfulness in your life and coming to know that you have a purpose to fulfill. Some gain spirituality by growing in their personal relationships with others, or through being at peace with nature. Spirituality allows us to find the inner calm and peace needed to get through whatever life brings, no matter what one's beliefs are or where they may be on your spiritual journey. Many factors play a part in defining spirituality:
Faith
Beliefs
Ethics
Morals
Principles
Values
Signs of Spiritual Wellness:
Developing a purpose in life
Having the ability to spend reflective time alone.
Taking time to reflect on the meaning of events in life.
Having a clear sense of right and wrong, and acting accordingly
Having the ability to explain why you believe what you believe.
Caring and acting for the welfare of others and the environment
Being able to practice forgiveness and compassion in life.
Check in with your spiritual wellness:
Do you allow yourself time alone?
Do you think about the meaning of life?
Do you take walks in nature? Appreciate the transformation of each season?
Do you pause to remind yourself that life isn’t all about you?
Do you put down your phone to just be?
Do you practice activities that allow you to slow down?
Enjoying your work or education and having financial security along with understanding work or school/life balance is how you create Occupational Wellness. Enjoying what you do is one of the biggest influences of workplace wellness. This can also relate to being a student in a post-secondary institution as well. Other parts of occupational wellness include:
Financial Security – Seneca has Scholarships and Bursaries as well as Financial Aid for students
Collaborating With Like-Minded People
Understanding Work or School/Life Balance - What's your balance between work and relaxation?
Feeling Challenged/Motivated
Feeling Inspired
Achieving Career Goals – discuss your plans with the staff at SenecaWorks
If your occupation or educational journey is not matching up with your wellbeing, consider looking for other opportunities that spark a certain drive that you are currently lacking.
Spending your time in a safe and clean environment can help promote Environmental Wellness. You can find these types of outdoor spaces in your local parks.
Your home is another environment that is critical to your wellbeing. Is your room a place that you feel comfortable, safe and at ease in? Consider adding personal mementos, and plants and taking advantage of natural lighting.
Since studying will be your main job at Seneca, finding an environment that allows you to focus and be productive will be key. This may be your room, study lounge, library, or another place on campus. If you haven't already, explore and find one or more study spaces that works for you.
Contributing to the well-being of the environment makes people respect and feel more appreciative about their surroundings. Environmentally-friendly acts you can start practicing today include:
Riding a Bike
Reduce, Reuse, Recycle
Compost Food
Use Natural Products
Take Advantage of Sunlight
Resist Littering
Spend More Time Outside
Environmental Sustainability is one of Seneca’s 3 main pillars. With the release of its first sustainability plan, Seneca is focusing on four priority themes: leadership, community, education and research, and operations.
The content was adapted from the following resources:
Canadian Mental Health Association
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