Mental health day 2022: Our mental well-being is an essential part of our mental health and our overall well-being. Our mental health affects how we feel, think and act and can be significantly augmented by living a life centered around holistic well-being. It is an integrated approach to your overall health. It is as much about physical health as it is about emotional centering; it is also about fostering stronger connections with our community and living in harmony with nature. All these essentially add up to our health and happiness. You need to cultivate well-being across eight pillars physical, mental, professional, financial, social, community, planetary, and spiritual. These pillars encompass all aspects of life that contribute to individual and collective well-being. (Also read: Mental Health Day 2022: How sleep affects your mental health? Expert offers tips )
Talking to HT Lifestyle, Prakriti Poddar, Global Head, Mental Health and Wellbeing at RoundGlass says “Living a life of wholistic well-being which includes being mindful, finding joy in each moment, taking care of the community and the planet can enable us to live with greater mental health and well-being,”. In her role at RoundGlass, Prakriti creates communities, initiatives, and outreach for mental health awareness and support, in addition to integrating peace and harmony to address mental and emotional health.
Here, Prakriti lists the 8 pillars of well-being and how they benefit our mental health:
Mental Wellbeing:
Mental well-being refers to healthy habits of thinking and emotion. How we feel, think, and act in the world contributes to our capacity for a healthy mental life, including sound decision-making, self-regulation, and self-control. Emotional wellbeing is a part of it and is about accepting our feelings and thoughts without pushing them away or letting them overwhelm us.
Physical Wellbeing:
Physical wellbeing refers to a healthy, balanced, and optimally functioning body characterized by healthy habits such as regular exercise, good diet, sleeping, and eating well. All aspects of physical wellbeing are essential for and impact mental health.
Social Wellbeing:
Nurturing social connections fosters feelings of safety, trust, and kinship. Social connections have been linked to lower levels of anxiety and depression, and greater empathy.
Community Wellbeing:
Participating in one’s community, such as by volunteering time, talent, and expertise is a ways of expressing gratitude, which has been shown to increase positive emotions in the mind.
Financial Wellbeing:
Financial well-being refers to a state of being wherein a person can fully meet current and ongoing financial obligations, feel secure in their financial future, and be able to make choices that allow them to enjoy life. Multiple studies have shown financial well-being has a significant impact on mental health.
Professional Wellbeing:
It refers to a state of being secure and satisfied with one’s career path and work environment. It involves a feeling of work-life balance and feel valued for your contributions.
Planetary Wellbeing:
In the long run, the health of our planet is intrinsically linked to our overall well-being, including mental. Taking care of and respecting our natural environment and the planet at large contributes to planetary wellbeing.
Spiritual Wellbeing:
It refers to the profound experience of connection to a sense of purpose or energy greater than us, and the loosening or dissolving of boundaries between the self and others, or the self and the world. This experience provides us with a sense of peace, purpose and forgiveness at times of emotional stress and illness.
These eight pillars are all linked and add up to our complete wellbeing and can be achieved through wellbeing practices such as meditation and mindfulness, yoga and eating healthy. Take small steps each day to transform your life and embrace wholistic wellbeing to live with greater happiness and health.