Health, Wellness or Well-being?

I’ve been on the receiving end of a number of articles, social media alerts and conversations that seem to have a common theme: they all talk about health, wellness and well-being. Be it through, using organic and now natural products (which is apparently different from the aforementioned), or different treatment types: homeopathy, Alternative medicine, Ayurveda, and even modern medicinal practice. All promising to lead me into a life of health, wellness and well-being.

Right, so first let’s look at the word “health”. Health refers to the condition of the mind and body. It talks to the healing of illnesses and sickness that manifest at a cellular level causing temporary or sometimes lasting negative effects on the individual’s life. Health can be attained through using natural sources, methods, relying on modern medicine or even a combination

Wellness, however, is a process, it is the approach taken to achieve a state of well-being. In the 1970s Dr Bill Hettler* published his research on the dimensions of wellness, that have now grown into and been modified to fit our lives today. He maintained that a state of well-being is achieved through working with a set of interdependent dimensions that include the social, psychological, environmental, physical, emotional, work, financial areas of our lives. Wellness would thus entail using any of the products and therapies that have been researched, studied and proven across the dimensions, and this would ideally result being able to live in a beautiful state of well-being.

The objective is well-being. Health and wellness lead to this objective. This means taking into consideration not just the physical body, but giving significant weight to our wellness paths and making the necessary changes in any or all the dimensions. Our body, our spirit, our food, our community, our work.