The most commonly understood aspect of wellness appears to be the physical dimension of wellness. Although most people will commonly link this dimension to how often they exercise or how much they weight on the bathroom scale. The physical dimension can be much more for an individual’s wellness.
First and foremost, it is super important for a person to have a baseline of their current physical condition evaluated with a medical doctor. Each year a person needs to participate in an annual physical. This provides important information for preventative measures and potential health risks. Prevention and preventative screenings are certainly vital to one’s physical health.
Second, it is time to become aware of the quality and quantity of sleep we get each night. We need the reset for our brain and body to function the next day. This can be achieved by setting a sleep routine with consistent times for going to sleep and waking each morning. When I first started to be more intentional about my sleep, I started with setting sleep goals for myself.
Third, stay hydrated. I find many people around me including myself were reporting headaches or feeling sluggish. This was resolved by being more intentional in drinking water more frequently during the day.
Fourth, paying attention to your nutrition is important to your physical health. Each person has their own unique needs for nutrition or their own responses to food. Through following the information from my blood work, I discovered I was vitamin D deficient at a certain point in my life and it caused me to be more tired. I was able to add more foods that would increase my vitamin D into my diet to resolve this issue. Again, I do recommend working with your primary care physician or a functional integrative medical doctor to guide you with these recommendations. There is a lot of misinformation and contradicting information that can cause more harm to you if you are not careful.
Finally, for your physical health, you do need to choose a method for physical movement and activity. Every person does not need to be a professional athlete to achieve wellness through physical movement. There are many medical doctors, like Dr. Andrew Weil, who recommend walking as the main movement exercise to main optimal wellness. They key for choosing a physical activity is to choose one that you will enjoy enough to return to on a consistent basis. Physical activity not only increases your heart rate; it provides additional oxygen to your brain for optimal functioning.