What's Wellness? And Why Should You Care?

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These days, "wellness" has become quite a buzzword. But in spite of its newfound status, there's still a great deal of confusion about what the word actually means.

When I recently introduced myself as a wellness coach to a man at a networking event, he looked perplexed. "What exactly IS wellness?" he asked. "Is it about health or exercise or something else?"

In another venue, I mentioned the word wellness, and a well-respected physician rolled the word around in her mouth like an exotic new food. "Wellness, wellness ... It's all about eating healthy isn't it?" she asked. While that's certainly one aspect of wellness, I thought, it's considerably more complex than that.

So, what, exactly, IS wellness? I hope to shed some light on the subject, here, although I admit that the word is, indeed, a little slippery.

Merriam Webster Online defines wellness as "the quality or state of being in good health especially as an actively sought goal." That's a nice start, but MW's definition is still a little vague.

Several years ago, the National Wellness Institute (an organization dedicated to providing wellness professionals with resources and services that fuel professional and personal growth) surveyed some heavy hitters in the field to see if they could agree on a few common tenets of wellness. Many experts they polled agreed that wellness is:

A conscious, self-directed, and evolving process of achieving full potential
Multi-dimensional and holistic, encompassing lifestyle, mental and spiritual wellbeing, and the environment
Positive and affirming

While those descriptions help embellish Merriam Webster's definition, I'd like to clarify the meaning even more through these two additional definitions:

"Wellness is the experience of living life with high levels of awareness, conscious choice, self acceptance, interconnectedness, love, meaning and purpose." - From the book Wellness Coaching for Lasting Lifestyle Change by psychologist and professional certified coach Michael Arloski.
"Wellness is the integration of body, mind, and spirit - the appreciation that everything you do and think and feel and believe has an impact on your state of health and the health of the world." - From the book, Wellness Workbook: How to Achieve Enduring Health and Vitality by John W. Travis, MD, who founded the first wellness center in the United States in 1975.

I personally believe that the journey to wellness is a multi-faceted, process that takes commitment, time, and drive. While many people equate wellness with physical health or merely an absence of symptoms or illness, wellness is so much more than that! When I accompany clients on a journey to wellness, I help them look at how fulfilled they feel about every aspect of their life, including their business or career, their social connections and family life, their physical and emotional health, their personal development, and their spirituality. That's because all these areas are interconnected. So if someone feels unfulfilled in his career or is having trouble in his marriage, it will likely impact other aspects of his life, including his health and wellbeing.

To me, wellness is about having a healthy, balanced, fulfilling life. It's about having plenty of energy to pour into the activities that truly matter to you, whether that's growing your business, spending quality time with your family, hanging out with your friends, playing a sport you love, cultivating and nurturing a special interest, or all of the above.

To me, wellness, in its broadest sense, is about creating a life you love and living it authentically and mindfully, in the moment.

Ellen H. Brown