By Tochi Okafor

A lot of people have been bitten by the “wellness bug. More people are choosing salads over Amala (I didn’t say everyone), choosing water as the drink of choice and constantly seeking the newest trending intervention to help them get back in shape.

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It is exciting to witness a more health-focused city, bursting with joggers everywhere you turn.

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While these behaviours are definitely wellness practices, they are only aspects and not the whole. Wellness is much broader than just the physical and health aspects of life and my objective is to help you get a sense of what wellness is.

We asked a few people what wellness means and we heard terms relating to health, herbal remedies, exercise, Yoga, dieting, Pharmaceutical intervention, neo-spirituality and a whole lot of other stuff.

So let me try my best to clear the air around this buzzword and what it means.

The National Wellness Institute defines wellness as: “A conscious, self-directed and evolving process of achieving full potential.”

Another definition I particularly liked from the internet was “Wellness is an active process of becoming aware of and making choices toward a healthy and fulfilling life. Wellness is more than being free from illness, it is a dynamic process of change and growth.”

Did you notice how the definitions opened up a range of aspects and did not only focus on just health, or exercise or diet alone?

This goes to say that wellness points to more than one aspect of your life. It suggests that a combination of things managed effectively will lead to wellness… .

The simplest description I have for wellness is: “The ability of a person to assign priority to the aspect of their life that needs attention the most per season/time.”

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Okay, let’s break that down now.

If I were to use one word to describe wellness, I’d say balance.

But here’s the thing! Balance is a tricky word—when you hear the word “balance,” please do NOT imagine that it is a state where you have all you want, your life is perfect and it never goes out of sync. Instead, think of balance as your ability to assign priority to the aspect of your life that needs attention the most per time/season. Knowing this puts you at an advantage as regards managing yourself and your life.

Over the years in my work, I have come to approach wellness through a seven-dimension model which I like to call:

“The Seven Dimensions To Wellness”

The seven dimensions to wellness consist of seven critical areas which if well-managed, lead to a functional existence. They are:

– Physical Wellness

– Emotional Wellness

– Relational Wellness

– Financial Wellness

– Spiritual Wellness

– Intellectual Wellness

– Mental Wellness

The whole idea of the seven dimensions focuses on helping you become aware of the aspects of your life that serve as core indicators of a sound being and this awareness basically enables you to identify the aspect that needs attention at each given time.

I am one of the lucky people to have hand-picked their degree of study. Being of Nigerian parents, most of us can relate to the fact that our parents have a strong opinion on the courses that we choose in the university so I consider myself really lucky to have dodged that bullet. Being a curious and intuitive child, it was a delight to have discovered Psychology, who would pass up an opportunity to study human behaviour right?

I have enjoyed a versatile career path and it has provided me with a rich perspective on life and business. However, my insatiable hunger to learn how to improve the human state remained with me and after school, life-coaching seemed a perfect fit. With numerous training sessions on the subject of wellness, I embarked on a career as a wellness consultant.

Over the next editions of ‘The wellness corner with Tochi”, I will be covering each arm of the seven dimensions. I hope this improves your overall awareness and practice of wellness. See you in the next post.

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