The Choice To Be Well

Wellness is a fabulous concept; healthy lifestyles encompassing fitness, mental health, freedom from chronic illness/disease, and nutritionally sound eating are blazing the way in the 21st century.

Employers, health insurance, health clubs and physicians are all blowing the wellness horn. Unfortunately, most people are so inundated and confused by just the concept of wellness that they have difficulty ascertaining a place to start being well. Couple that with the misinformation on exercise, nutrition, supplements, stress and the gimmicks associated with the aforementioned, and its no wonder that confusion prevails.

Every day it seems that more and more people are jumping on the magic pill bandwagon searching for that one thing that will make them healthy with the least amount of effort or time. Sadly, that is not how the body works. Extremes of stress, fatigue, stimulants (caffeine, nicotine, sugar), inactivity, poor posture and unhealthy foods all take a cumulative toll on the body. The unfortunate fact is that most people do not feel the gradual deterioration of their body until they are way behind the ball, and this means that they must play catch up to regain their health.

My point is that life is full of choices and the fewer bad choices we make the better off we are:

• Choosing to exercise
• Choosing to be fit
• Choosing to NOT be negative
• Choosing to believe in something
• Choosing to make better choices

I am not a big fan of preaching the merits of walking a center line through life but in this context it makes sense. The less we deviate to the sides of the road and the more time we spend following the center line the more grounded we become. Wellness dictates periods of balance in the mind-body-soul.

Take a few vacations a year, dream, stop and just rest, turn your brain off, read a good book; all of these help achieve inner balance. That is not to say that all stresses in life are bad. Sometimes a good mental and/or physical challenge is just what we need to stimulate our sense of well being, so go white water rafting, hiking, do some team building, puzzles etc. Try not to sweat the petty little issues. We spend far too much of our time focused and obsessed on the little details and we miss the big picture.

Hopefully this has helped to open your eyes to what wellness encompasses in our daily lives and throughout our lives. Stay tuned for some insight into the specifics of wellness that I alluded to above.