Your Wellness Score for the New Year

The year is quickly coming to an end, making this the perfect time to assess your health and wellness status. While we reflect we can also dedicate ourselves to a wellness checkup, to make sure that we start the new year in good health. To achieve wellness we must make active and thoughtful choices for a more healthy, fulfilling and balanced life. There are seven dimensions of wellness and together they equate to a full quality of life. The seven dimensions include career, emotional, environmental, intellectual, physical, social, and spiritual health.

Listed below are tips to help you assess your health and wellness in these seven categories.

Your New Year Health and Wellness Score:

Career Wellness

Career wellness is something that we all strive for. There are three simple aspects to a healthy career. First, you must love what you do. In addition, you must feel fulfilled from your job. And finally, your work should positively impact others, whether it be your coworker, customers, etc. Achieving all of this while maintaining work-life balance is important too.

Determine your career fitness with these questions:

• Do you enjoy going to work?
• Are you feeling stressed?
• Are you bonding with coworkers?

Emotional Wellness

A healthy emotional life means understanding yourself, positively coping with changes, and successfully expressing your feelings. It can feel like a daunting task at times, but it is key to a healthy life.

Now is the time to question your emotional fitness. Consider the questions listed below.

• Do you maintain emotional balance?
• Do you appreciate your own self-worth?

Environmental Wellness

A healthy environment is vital for your personal health. Living a sustainable lifestyle is a must, but striving not to harm the air, land, or water is also important. Do you want to live an eco-friendly life? Recycling and maintaining a zero waste home are just two of the ways that you can practice environmental wellness.

What’s your environmental fitness score? Consider these questions:

• Do you recycle or compost or limit your carbon footprint?
• Do you volunteer?

Intellectual Wellness

There are many ways to stay intellectually fit. Keeping up with current news is one helpful idea, but that’s not all. Engaging in mental exercises and learning from new things can also be beneficial.

How do you know that you’re intellectually fit? Consider these questions:

• Do you search for learning opportunities?
• Do you look for creative projects?

Physical Wellness

Being physically fit means eating right and getting lots of sleep. It also means adopting healthy habits like visiting the doctor and exercising regularly.

You can determine your physical fitness by considering this question:

• Do you know your cholesterol, weight, blood pressure and blood sugar numbers?

Social Wellness

Those who are socially fit connect with others. They also establish and maintain positive relationships with family and friends.

What’s your social fitness score? Consider these questions:

• Are your relationships rewarding?
• Do you respect others for their differences?

Spiritual Wellness

Are you spiritually fit? Spiritually fit means finding peace and harmony in your life. You can do this through prayer and other spiritual practices. Also, meditation is a good form of spiritual exercise.

You can determine your spiritual fitness by considering these questions:

• Do you relax enough during the day?
• Are you accepting of others’ views?

Bonus. Need more information on the seven dimensions of wellness? The World Health Organization and the University of Wisconsin has an assessment form that you can use to help further your wellness checkup.