What Is The Meaning Of ”Fitness” and How Do We Improve It?
IS WELLNESS DIFFERENT TO HEALTH?
Yes, they are considered different, health is referring to a state of how healthy your body is, if your body is free from dis – ease, health is a state of being, health is the goal.
WHAT IS WELLNESS?
Wellness is an overall package of your being, wellness is the process of realising who you are, how you feel, what your body physically requires to live a healthy, fulfilling life, and making the choice to be well through complete awareness.
You will not feel completely “well” if something in your ‘SELF” is off, whether it be your mind, body, soul, even what you surround yourself with, your social life, your job, with wellness everything comes into consideration.
WHAT ARE THE DIFFERENT TYPES OF WELLNESS?
There are 8 different types of wellness, in this article we will focus on 5 of them.
- Physical Wellness
- Emotional Wellness
- Spiritual Wellness
- Social Wellness
- Intellectual Wellness
There is also Environmental, Vocational, and Financial.
What is physical wellness?
Physical Wellness is being aware of what your body needs to keep it healthy and in good working order, preventing illness, injury, or chronic health conditions.
Recognising that you need to exercise and move your body as well as eat healthy nutritious food, if you fill your body with rubbish, yes, you will feel like rubbish.
What is emotional wellness?
Emotional Wellness is how well you can handle life’s stresses, to change and adapt with what is going on around you successfully.
Being aware of your emotions, bodily sensations, and behaviour when life gets stressful.
Do you have a selfcare routine?
What is spiritual wellness?
Spiritual Wellness is connecting to something greater than yourself, finding your purpose and the meaning of life from your perspective. The desire to be a good person and do good, to live with a grateful heart.
It does not have be anything to do with religion, or religious activities.
What is social wellness?
Social Wellness is successfully connecting to support system, whether it be family, friends, neighbours.
Building good relationships with others, who you can call on if you need support or vice versa, having a genuine connection and care for one another.
What is intellectual wellness?
Intellectual Wellness is being open to new experiences, recognizing your creative skills, encourages us to find ways to learn and develop our knowledge and skills.
When we find ways to develop personally and professionally through community and personal hobbies.
Here we have given some ways to improve each dimension of wellness.
Physical Wellness
- Exercise, just move more, exercise helps you burn calories, improves your heart health, helps with stress and anxiety, exercise will also release the feel-good hormones serotonin and dopamine, after you exercise you always feel amazing, tired yes, but the high you get from exercise feels euphoric, especially yoga obviously J
- Hydrate your body, water is essential in keeping you alive, it flushes out all the toxins held within the body. When you think you are hungry, this may be dehydration, drink some water first then see how you feel afterwards. To stop dehydration, make sure you sip water throughout your day, drinking between 2-4 litres depending on your body size.
- Nutritious Diet, it is essential to have a healthy nutritious diet if you want to stay away from any lifestyle related diseases, having a balanced diet will give you more energy, will make you feel and look great. An ideal diet would be lots of vegetables, fruits (berries), proteins (lean meats, eggs, nuts), healthy carb source (sweet potato, lentils), and fats (avocado, seeds, olive oil), also staying away from simple carbs (cakes, biscuits) and processed foods (ready-made meals, sugary cereals).
- Sleep is so important for recovery, i cannot not stress this enough, if you suffer from restless nights, try get yourself into a routine, switch your tv off, read a book, no sugar or alcohol within at least 2-3 hours, coffee 5-6 hours before you go to bed.
Emotional Wellness
- Laugh, this is very important, it is shown to decrease stress and improve how you feel emotionally, laughing with your friends or at a funny show is one of the best ways to uplift your soul.
- Practice Gratitude, when you are grateful for the things in your life, it is very hard to be sad, this is a great way to improve your mood.
- Self-Awareness, before you can work on your emotions you need to be aware of them, meditation is a great way to turn inwards and tune into the sensations of your body, where are they coming from, what comes up when you sit in silence and listen, truly listen to your body.
Spiritual Wellness
- Connect to yourself and your purpose in life, no one wants to live an unfulfilled life, spiritual wellness is learning about yourself, becoming self-aware, figuring life out and what brings you the most joy, so you can spread that happiness and lift as many people up along the way.
- Help others, whether you donate, volunteer, give advice, giving back to others who need your help is one of the most spiritual activities you can do, helping is our deepest human desire/need, contributing to your community can remind you of all the things you have to be grateful for.
- Be mindful of your life, how you live and how your decisions affect others around you, being mindful helps you be fully present in the moment, stay off your phone when you are speaking with friends and loved ones, really listen to them.
Social Wellness
- Nurture your friendships and the relationships that you have been neglecting, also letting go of the ones that are not good for you and are holding you back.
- Join a club and meet new people who share the same interest and goals, maybe join a yoga class.
- Respect and love yourself first, until you give yourself self-love, self-respect, and self-acceptance you will not attract the people who love and respect you, you will never be able to develop social wellness with a negative inner dialogue.
Intellectual Wellness
- Journal your thoughts and feelings, keep a daily log of the events that go on in your life, this can show your growth as a human mentally.
- Read books, instead of wasting time scrolling through your phone for hours in a daze, find a book and study it over and over until its ingrained in your brain, all the things you want to learn from it.
- Experience life, go visit museums, listen to music bands, join in cultural activities that can help you express your creativity, do things that stimulate your brain.
Now we understand what each individual key to wellness is, and that is not a one-time event like having a massage, it is a lifelong journey, a process that you will progress in as you age (hopefully) building better habits and improving the quality of your life.
WHERE DO WE START?
All fitness plans look different, if you had someone who coached you, you would expect a plan tailored to your specific needs.
Make sure you take time, and the right steps to plan your own fitness regime.
Here are tips to help you, these are great starting points and very important when it comes to choosing your goals and increasing your fitness.
- YOUR REASON
When it comes down to the core, you always achieve more when you work from your soul’s desire.
What is your purpose? Your reason? Whether it be, to be able to get off the couch to go play with your children and feel good, if you want to compete in a marathon, or if you want to win a gold medal at the Olympics.
Your reason is what is going to help you get there, this will be your motivation when your alarm goes off in the morning and you want to stay in bed, all cosy, or when you are tired after work and all you want to do is go home and watch tv.
Your WHY? Whatever it may be is going to make it happen.
So, first things first, figure out your reason and you will be far more successful, stick with the plan and achieve your goal.
- TIME TO SET SOME GOALS
Goals are another very important part in the road to achieving great things, it’s a crucial part of the plan.
Figure out what fitness goals you want to achieve, if your goal is to run half marathon for charity within 2 months, you will need to strategically set out how many miles per week you want to hit, especially if you want to do it in a good time.
- YOU CANNOT OUT-TRAIN A BAD DIET
If you are serious about your fitness journey you really need to be even more serious about your nutrition, there is no getting away from a bad diet.
The food you consume will enable your body to do the work that is required from it. Eating to fuel your body is key in hitting those workouts, making them more effective, becoming stronger and fitter every day.
The food you eat will help reduce body fat, build muscle, and in turn you will become healthier, happier, and fitter in the process.
So, stay away from processed junk, fuel your body with nutrient dense wholesome foods and you will feel like a new improved version of yourself.
- GET TO KNOW YOUR BODY
Getting to know your body is so important for life, not just when it comes to exercising and fitness, becoming aware of your body will help you push yourself when you can, and it will also let you know when you have done too much.
When it comes to training, you will want to assess yourself every two weeks to a month, then adjust accordingly to maintain your progress.
To maintain your progress and keep moving forward, listen to your body, as you get fitter you will want to increase the intensity but make sure you recognise when you should rest and recover also, if you don’t, this is a sure-fire way of picking up an injury and holding you back from achieving the goal you have set for yourself.
- WORK ON YOUR WEAKNESS
Who wants to admit they have weaknesses, probably no one, but when you do admit you have some, and begin working on them this is when you excel, I know it doesn’t feel very good to be bad at something but when you struggle and put the effort in to perfect the weak link, you will become a master at your craft.
Although, this is when you will need to remember your why to drive you forward and motivate you, once you achieve your goal, there will be no looking back.
Being fit and healthy has so many benefits to your life, from helping you get rid of stress, anxiety, and low self-esteem from your body and mind, also keeps your joints, muscles, and bones in working order.
Building muscle will increase longevity, as we get older your muscle will become very important in keeping you strong going into old age, the more muscle you have the more chance you have of survival from any illness or disease that you may contract.
Exercising also promotes a better quality of sleep, the reason for this is your immunity will be strengthened and stress will be low, this will help you wake fresh and focused ready for your workout.
All in all, you will become a more rounded human, if you learn to love training and become physically and mentally fit.
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If you listen to the fitness and recovery equation your gains will come, strength and endurance. You will increase your fitness levels. For most of us, the biggest benefit is that we will be able to keep doing the things that we love to do, to live a long and happy active life. We know that varied exercise has benefits on all the body: the cardiovascular system, muscles and skeletal, the immune system. People in general who exercise regularly live longer and have better mental health, this is all we want for ourselves and our families, so let’s lead by example for everyone around us that looks up to us. Making sure you have a log of your progress. This is a great way to keep control. Keep track of what you are doing, how you are recovering, also how you feel around your training schedule. Stay on track, be mindful of your body and take care of yourself. 
