Health is more than not being ill!
By Mark Quirk
“How are you?” “I’m fine, thanks, how are you?”
This familiar greeting is, perhaps necessarily, brief. It is, of course, intended as a polite greeting, not usually the start of an exploratory conversation into how we actually are – and that’s an accepted social norm.
As a genuinely open question, where would you start? Perhaps your physical health – but do we include illnesses, does it include our aching back, slightly swollen ankle from that misstep yesterday, or fatigue from a poor night’s sleep? And, by illness, does a bit of a cold cut it, or do we need a diagnosed illness?
What about our mental state? Should we mention that the pressure from work or family impacts our sleep? Do we mention emotional difficulty with recurring unpleasant thoughts triggered by a past hurt? Or, again, does it have to be a diagnosed mental illness before it’s important enough?
Perhaps the above challenges are why ‘how are you?’ is used simply as a greeting!
But, hang on, when did the word health become synonymous will ill. There’s a whole range of ill that we could talk about and seemingly little to discuss on the well side. Enter the study of wellbeing!
The UK Office for National Statistics runs a quarterly personal wellbeing pulse which includes four questions about life satisfaction, doing worthwhile things (meaning), happiness (positive emotions), and lack of anxiety. And the US Center for Disease Control suggests that wellbeing includes, at a minimum, “the presence of positive emotions and moods, the absence of negative emotions, satisfaction with life, fulfilment and positive functioning.”
These definitions aren’t explicit about physical wellness, presumably, because they implicitly include it – if you’re physically well or ill, that would likely affect satisfaction with life, for example.
Even at this level of detail, it’s easy to see that wellbeing can be affected by a broad range of things. We can work with the mind (thinking patterns, emotions, habits, all of which can impact stress and recovery), the body (movement, fitness, nutrition, sleep), and where they interact with others through relationships and social or community engagement, our work and finances, how we deal with unexpected challenges or create challenges for growth. And each of us might be more or less impacted by any one of these areas.
All in all, I’d say developing wellbeing is all about enhancing our desire and capacity to live the life we desire within the boundaries of society. What do you do to develop and support your wellbeing?