If you have not been satisfied with the definition of the term wellness, you are not alone. The term has only been around since the 1970's and as far as I can tell there is not a consensus on its meaning. The field of medicine seems to look upon the term as meaning a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being.
Alternative medicine seems to define 'wellness' as a healthy balance of the mind-body and spirit.
With all of the recent use of the term "Wellness Programs" (Google has 2,350,000 entries), the definitions that are out there do not give me a useful concept of what these programs are really all about. Apparently companies can buy wellness packages addressing certain health related programs that employees can participate in, but I have seen no focused programs for individual employees who want to take personal responsibility for their overall health or employers who know how to get their employees to take this personal responsibility.
Most people will agree that we are Mind, Body, and Spirit. Although each of the entities make up the 'whole', it is difficult for me to think of health without thinking of mental health, bodily (physical) health, and spiritual health. It seems to me that each of these 3 health definitions will be different, and all of them must be integrated in an understanding of wellness.
Spiritual Health: Means the capacity for Agape Love (Like a mother's Love) and Forgiveness. Love and forgiveness is the Main Spirit, but we also must recognize that we all have 'Lesser Spirits' like hate, fear, competition, addiction, envy, jealously, bitterness, occultism, and rejection to name a few of them. It has seemed to me that our human nature is in a constant internal civil war about which of these spirits is in control. This internal civil war can cause constant stress.
Mental Health: Mental health is how we think, feel and act as we cope with life. Our minds are amazing creations that encompass our intellect and conciousness, and relate to our thoughts, perceptions, our emotions, our will, and our imagination. Our minds determine how we handle stress, how we relate to others, and how we make choices. Mental health is probably best defined by the absence of mental disorders like 1. anxiety disorder, 2.eating disorder, 3.mood disorders, 4.cognitive disorders, 5 personality disorders, 6. schizophrenia & psychotic disorders, 7. childhood disorders, and 8. substance related disorders, and 9. many others.
Physical Health: A definition that I have used is "when a body is functioning optimally". It has occured to me that this defination really doesn't give me much understanding. I believe that our body is wondroulsy created - actually beyond my comprehension - and that everything that our bodies need for physical health was provided at creation.
It has long been known that nutrition is essential for health. (Hippocrates 460 BC. "Let your food be your Medicine, and let your medicine be your food"). Depletion of our soil; food processing, which destroys much of nutrition in our foods; hormones and toxins in our food, air and water; substituting of traditional fats with vegetable oils and transfats; and the huge amounts of simple sugars in our diet, all influence good nutrition. All of these factors are making a huge, detrimental impact on our physical health, because our bodies were not created to process adulterated foods and the huge amount of processed and high glycemic foods 6that are now in the average diet.
The concept that nutrition occurs at a cellular level and is not a food-group receipe, is a relatively new nutritional concept. Many of the toxins and chemicals in our world injure cellular function, and are detrimental to our health and well-being.
It is apparent to me that we cannot trust someone else to make us healthy. True wellness will depend upon each of us taking responsibility for our personal health and learning how best to maintain it. A Wellness Coach can make this personal learning process much easier. No one can do it to us or for us, but there are those who can help us.
If we want to take personal control of our health, it will be necessary for us to recognise how wondrously we have been made and take the personal respnsibility to support our bodies with proper nutrition, good water, adequate exercise, and avoidance of the many toxins in our foods and environment.
Medicines approach to illness is to treat and manage the symptoms that signal a dis-ease rather than support healing our body of the dysfunction that causes the symptoms. While medicine's approach is a good short term solution, it is not the long term answer to wellness. Much of the expense in the medical approach is finding the disease at an earlier stage, but it makes more sense to prevent the dis-ease by providing support for our body and its inate potential to heal itself if it has the proper nutrition and care.
It is my opinion that both of these approaches must be integrated into health care, but more emphasis needs to be put on prevention and supporting the natural propensity of the body to heal itself with the proper nutrition and lifestyle!
Walther Meyer MD., CMD.
Nutrimed@tds.net
