How are you? Five ways to wellbeing
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“How are you?” is a question that we are asked almost every day... and many times each day... by many people... colleagues, friends, family and even strangers.
“How are you doing?”, “Are you alright ?”, “You okay?” is the much repeated question, and we impulsively say “Yes, I am good,” or nod our head in answer.
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Are you really okay? Or do we sometimes hide our inner state of physical and mental wellbeing behind words, smiles and work? How do we ensure that we are well and taking care of ourselves, that we are okay physically and mentally?
What do we mean by wellbeing? Or being well? The Oxford Dictionary defines it as the state of being comfortable, healthy or happy. The World Health Organisation explains wellbeing as “… a positive state experienced by individuals and societies that is influenced by social, economic and environmental factors.”
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, the Indian yoga guru and spiritual leader who founded The Art of Living, suggests in his book Notes for the Journey that there are five factors that impact the mind: place, time, food, past experiences and associations/actions. However, the way in which we let these factors impact our mind – how we savour and save these experiences and how we pull them up when needed the most – is up to us.
Positive experiences make us feel good and lead to pleasant memories. The poet and philosopher Khalil Gibran says, “We choose our joys and our sorrows long before we experience them.” If this is true, then do we let our sad, angry unpleasant experienced yesterday rule our thoughts, emotions and wellbeing today?
Ben Bradley in his book Well-Being states, “A good day for you is a day during which you are pleased more than pained.” It doesn’t have to be something that happened on the day. If this is true, could we then relive our pleasant experiences of the previous day or week to make today a good day for us?
We often think of wellbeing more in terms of a state of mind. We also often relate well-being to happiness and in turn, relate happiness to ownership and power. But is this correct? How can we then take back control of our wellbeing?
Here are my five ways to wellbeing:
1. Gratitude
Begin each day with gratitude. As you wake up in bed and open your eyes, be grateful that you have been given another day, to accomplish your vision and live your dreams. It has been proven that a gratitude intervention could lead to improved wellbeing in a mental health setting.
Spirituality, meditation, chants, hymns, soft music, grass beneath your feet or the wind in your hair (whatever you believe in, and whatever works for you) – and all of this before the caffeine kicks in!
2. Exercise
This is often something that we find it difficult to make time for. My personal encounters with exercise have always been sporadic, impulsive and short-lived. But a rather painful shoulder condition and inability to complete mundane tasks got me thinking about the benefits of simple exercises. Sometimes simple changes like 10-minute exercises in the morning, moving away from your emails to get those much-needed stretches, a walk during lunchtime or a one-month gym membership is all you need to get started.
Stork et al (2024) describe planned stair climbing as Exercise snacks and a feasible approach in the workplace setting; something that could be a great activity when done as a group. This online resource, Energy & Well-Being Pocketbook, has some easy and simple brain break desk exercises worth trying out.
3. Food
What we eat, how we eat, where we eat and who we eat it with... The psychology of eating is as important as the food choices themselves.
Chohan in Take Your Lunch Break explains how eggs for breakfast was the source of panic attacks in one individual, and switching that changed her life and wellbeing – uncanny but true!
So, what do you eat for breakfast? Do you take a lunch break or do you munch on a sandwich at your desk while working on coursework? Stop and think!
Meller in Root, Stem, Leaf, Flower insists that making small changes to the way we cook and eat can both lessen the impact we have on the environment and dramatically improve our health and wellbeing: good for us and for future generations to come.
Winter Wellbeing and The Art of Healthy Living are both helpful resources – the UWL library has a large collection of related books to borrow and simple recipes to try out.
4. Self care
Balancing our professional and personal life, combined with the commute, financial worries and scarcity of time, often has a negative effect on our wellbeing.
Stress in the workplace (or in your studies) is one of the most important factors of burnout. De-Stress at Work asks a pertinent question – "can the goal of high productivity be reconciled with the goal of quality of work life?"
On the other hand, it is up to each one of us to find that work/life balance that everybody is talking about. Do we take our university concerns home on the bus with us?
I really enjoyed reading Art for Self-Care, which is very colourful and yet simple to understand and follow. The positive affirmations (as well as images of cats) helped me look at life and work through a different lens. Also, a number of you will definitely agree with me that having a pet goes a long way to creating a calmer and happier you!
And for those of you who think, “I don’t have the time to stop and smell the flowers,” and “pausing feels like a luxury that I don’t have time for,” the book explains how ironically, when I make pausing a priority, everything flows more easily. This book is a winner, for sure!
The NHS has a really engaging list of activities focused towards Wellbeing – 5 steps to mental wellbeing, along with their mental wellbeing audio guides are worth a look as you focus more on taking care of yourself.
5. Volunteering
Maslow's theory of hierarchy of needs explains that to do something that you know you are not going to get paid for is self-actualisation and for enlightened souls. Motivation in Organisations : Searching for a Meaningful Work-Life Balance speaks about transcendent motivation also called ‘giving’ – giving of your time, talent and effort – in effect, volunteering.
Volunteer has some good tips and ideas to get involved in activities both at UWL and outside, whether for the local library, museum, church, the council or a charity.
Teaching English, reading to children and older residents, helping at a food bank, visiting care homes, fundraising, community activities, helping to clean, cook or motivate are all tasks that provide a deep sense of fulfilment, not to mention building channels of communication, co-operation and cultural exchanges.
More suggestions and information can be found in The Routledge Handbook of Volunteering in Events, Sport and Tourism.
In conclusion, I can safely rationalise that I have tried these five ways of wellbeing and they do work, but sometimes I do not persevere. Lack of time, responsibilities and various other hurdles sometimes force me to abandon my well-intended forays into wellbeing.
However, I have now learnt that if we fail to persevere, we should not be afraid to go back to the start line and begin again. After all, well begun is half done. Staircase exercises anyone?
