Wellness - it's everything

Many people focus on just one or two areas when they begin to focus on wellness. Especially food and exercise are two main targets as it's directly related to fitness and health. We have learned that in order to prevent a range of diseases and problems we need to work out and eat healthy.

Wellness is just so much more than that. It includes mental health as well. How we feel about ourselves, how our outlook on life is, how we cope with stress and our relationship to other people and our environment.

When begin to consider your wellness plan, you need to include all aspects of your life. You must look at everything there is and see what needs improvement and how you can do things differently. It's not enough to just focus on one or two areas and think that's enough to improve your wellness.

It's important that you consider both your physical, mental and emotional health when you begin to look at your wellness plan.

Physical wellness includes:

• Exercise
• Diet
• Environment
• Sleep/Relaxation
• Smoking/drinking/medication
• Health
  

Mental wellness includes:

• Stress
• Social life
• Emotions
  
• Outlook on life
• Depressions and blues
  

Areas to consider:

• Private life
• Family life
• Professional life
  

It's important that you consider all the different areas of your life and well-being when you look at your current situation and how you can obtain and maintain your wellness. For some people, it's also important to incorporate the spiritual life, to have a faith and a belief. Where you know your spot in the world and scheme of things.

Your wellness is like an orchestra, consisting of a number of instruments which create great and beautiful music when they all play in harmony. Just one instrument which is disharmonious and the entire piece of music sounds wrong and becomes a pain instead of pleasure. Make sure all your instruments are in tune and played the right way and with the right tune and force.

Wellness - starting small

It doesn't take much to begin to increase your wellness. By starting small you can engage in good habits and one small step at a time improve your wellness to a level where it just takes easy maintenance.

It's important to start small. To focus on only a couple of things at a time so it doesn't become overwhelming and you can keep your motivation up. Taking on too many things at once will only leave you stressed and not allow you to fully engage in the things you're starting. It's well to keep in mind that it can take a couple of months to build new habits and have them so settled they are on auto-pilot.

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We all have individual needs and things we need to change, so it's hard to give a general plan on how to improve your wellness. In the following list, pick out the things which apply to you and start with those. Every month, evaluate your status and once a habit is well established, add another step to your wellness program.

• Focus on healthy food:
• Eat fruit and vegetables every day, minimum 6 a day is the ideal, but start small and begin by eating a piece of fruit after each meal as dessert.
  
• Eat 5-6 small meals a day instead of 2-3 big meals. Getting a snack between the main meals will help you keep your energy constant during the day and make you less prone to snack on unhealthy foods. Good snacks are things like fruit, raw veggies, whole meat bread with a slice of cheese, non-sweet biscuits etc.
  
• Drink water. Make it a habit to drink water instead of juice, soda, coffee, tea and other things. Save the rest for special situations.
• Eat varied. It's never healthy to eat too much of one thing. Make sure you get some of everything. Meat, fish, vegetables, potatoes, rice, bread and so on. For dinner make it one third meat, one third rice/potato/pasta and one third vegetables.
  
• Eat fish every week. Fish is good and healthy.

• Get some exercise:
• Go for a walk. We need an hours exercise every day, but it doesn't need to be the gym. Walking and gardening are great forms of exercise as well.
  
• Getting a personal trainer to help you create a schedule will help you to commit and motivate you to keep it up.
• Play with your children outdoors. Play ball, climb trees, build cages, play hide and seek or catch, anything you can imagine. Kids have amazing energy and they too need to be motivated to exercise more.
• Go to the pool once a week. Swimming is a great way to exercise and allows you to use your entire body. With kids it can become a great family experience and a game instead of boring workout.

• Relaxation:
  
• Go out and get fresh air every day.
• Go to bed earlier so you get enough sleep. Most people need between 7 and 8 hours uninterrupted sleep every night. Many can do with less, but it increases stress and risks your health.
  
• Catch a nap during the day if possible and needed. Powernaps lasting 20 minutes can be a good way to make up for a bad sleep.
  
• Meditation and yoga are good ways to relax.
• Get a massage once a month. Massage is a great way to maintain your health and deal with stress. Don't let the pleasant feeling make you feel guilty and stop you from getting a massage.

• Emotional and mental:
  
• Surround yourself with beautiful things, flowers, music, art and so on. Spend time to appreciate the beauty every day.
• Laugh every day. Laughter is a great stress release and teaching yourself to see the fun in stressing situations will allow you to cope with them much easier.
• Focus on the positive. Positive thinking can change everything. Negative thinking is one of our greatest dangers.
• Be social. Make sure you hang out with friends and family every week. Our social networks influence our wellness a lot, and recent studies even show that our friends are more important to our health than our family.
• Take one step at a time. All tasks can be overcome, all challenges conquered if you take one step at a time and focus on that.
  
• Focus on the now. Much worry and stress can be released if you focus on the now. We can't change the past, and the future might not happen. The only thing we can truly do something about is the now. Keeping that in mind can make life much easier to deal with.
  

There are many more things you can do, and they can be as complicated or simple as you make it. The above is meant to give you some ideas of where you can start, small easy things that doesn't take much effort to focus on. Just pick a couple of things and focus on that. If you have more energy, then pick one thing from each category and do that for a couple of months before considering adding more.

Don't pick several things from one category as it can easily become too overwhelming. By focusing on different areas you make it easier for yourself. For example; eat fruit for dessert every day, go for a half hour walk after dinner and start to appreciate the beautiful things around you. It's three steps, each small and something everybody can manage. Taking three things from the exercise category would quickly wear you out and make the habits very hard to build.

Most importantly of all. Allow yourself to relax and have fun. This shouldn't be a chore or something you have to do grudgingly every single day. Allow yourself a day where you indulge in chocolate and don't exercise. Relax and take things easy. Building and maintaining your wellness shouldn't become another stress factor in your life, but something that's enjoyable to do. Wellness is not just physical health, but also your emotional and mental health. If you're unhappy while eating healthy and exercising, then you're only building your health and not your wellness.

And finally, reward yourself for what you achieve. Rewards can be a good motivator, and it's a good way to relax and let go for a bit before you head back to the task of building your wellness.

Getting a monthly massage can be a very good and motivating reward for keeping a healthy diet and exercising every day.

Related post: A few wellness tricks

Massage as a journey

Massage is much more than releasing and relaxing sore muscles. Massage can become a means to full wellness, to be healthy in body and mind. It's important to realize the holistic aspect to massage and how profound it can be emotionally. Massage can be used to release pent up feelings and blockages built over years of modern life with stress and challenges.

Attending a workshop the other day I met a woman who had returned from a vacation in Thailand a month or so ago. She was beaming, radiating. There was a light in her eyes as she told about her vacation. They had been away from children and she had tried out the different massages at the destination, getting one every day. She had tried traditional Thai massage, Swedish massage, four-hands massage and what else they offered at the destination.

The first massages were interesting for her and she felt her muscles relax and the usual sensations most people feel when receiving a massage. But then a revelation happened to her and it became almost a spiritual experience. She suddenly became aware of her body. Fully aware of all the tensions and knots, of the pains and discomfort. And as the massage therapist worked on her, she gained insights into her how her life-style was affecting her body. The massage gave her a physical and emotional release, which gained her a huge understanding of herself.

Even several weeks after the experience, she could feel how the massage had helped her, she still felt floating and alive. The massages she had received allowed her to let go and be fully accepting to the touch. Through the massages she realized where her life wasn't good for her and she decided to change these things. To take more time to relax and listen to herself, to heed the signals of her body and pay attention to the warnings.

This example shows very clearly how profound and life-changing massage can become. That massage is not just fixing a sore shoulder or a way to feel good. Massage can also become a life-altering experience that makes you grow as a person and helps you find a better life.

Massage and touch are very powerful tools if only you open up to the experiences and let go. If you allow the massage to become more than purely physical treatment. By accepting a massage fully and let go, you become clearly aware of your body and the signals it gives you and can not only improve your emotional health, but also your physical health.

Massage can lead you to greater happiness if you're willing to embrace the experience and accept the possibilities.

Related articles: Body awareness, The importance of touch, Misunderstood touch, 7 good reasons to get a massage, massage and communication.

Misunderstood touch

Touch is often seen as something sexual and sensual, an erotic expression between lovers. And as result, we withdraw our touch and become nervous about touching. A touch from a stranger invades our personal space even if it's by accident in the metro. A father caressing and massaging his child is suspected of ulterior motives. Friends hugging becomes more than just friendship, especially when it's two men hugging.

As touch has been so sexualized we start to think that we want sensuality when we crave a touch. This very often leads to misunderstandings and confusion. Men calling to get sensual and erotic massages because they think they need sex, when it's touch they crave. Friends not hugging as they think their need for a touch is sexual and not a normal human thing. Kids not allowed to cuddle their parents as it becomes something more in the minds of adults.

Touch is a fundamental need in humans. We all need touch. It's as essential as relaxation, laughter, love and social contact. Touch helps us become aware of our bodies, of ourselves and our true needs. A touch is reassuring, comforting, supporting, healing and relaxing.

Massage is a wonderful way to sate the need and desire for a non-sexual touch. Often people find that what they thought was a sexual need indeed turns out to be a need to be touched instead, without the sexual and erotic aspect.

It's my hope that the awareness and acceptance of touch will increase and people understand how important touch is for well-being and wellness. And that there is not anything sexual about needing touch and physical closeness. It's my hope that those feeling they need a sexual massage will give it a try to get a non-sexual and non-sensual massage and that they will learn that it can even better fulfill what they crave.

We all need close contact with other people, to be close socially and share more than just words and mental energy. We also need to have physical contact, to feel cared for and appreciated. This is where a massage for relaxation and well-being has its strength. The touch is caressing and compassionate, meant to make you relax and sate your basic needs for human contact and closeness.

Related articles: The importance of touch, Body awareness