Wellness is Waiting So, you’re not sick but are you really well?
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ellness, or wellbeing, is more than being free of disease and is, in fact, a process that is always changing and growing. Wellness encompasses the physical, emotional, environmental, intellectual, spiritual, occupational and social aspects of life. All of these dimensions of wellness should be adhered to in order to be considered truly well. We want to feel good, look good and be happy. So every January we concentrate on the physical. We make New Year’s resolutions to lose weight, we take up exercise programs to firm up. But then fatigue from work and family responsibilities sets in and all the resolutions are out the window. Real change takes consistency and is borne of the desire to do right by our values, God or a higher power, self, family, friends, community and the world. For true wellness, an online description by the Penn Foundation Behavioral Health Services says it best by separating it into several dimensions: “Emotional wellness is the ability to name feelings and to manage them in appropriate
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By Christine Fanning