Wellness Education
What Is Wellness?
What Is Wellness?
Wellness is defined as an active and ongoing process that allows individuals and the broader community to reach their full potential.
- Individual wellness involves being happy and satisfied with life, having basic needs met, and contributing to the communities in which we live.
- Community wellness involves creating and sustaining an environment that is equitable and just for all.
The pillars of justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion are foundational to wellness. To promote wellness, one must understand that not all persons have equal access and opportunity due to systemic and structural barriers. In addition, it is critical that an individual and organization understand and interact effectively with people who have different values, lifestyles, and traditions based on their distinctive heritage, social relationships, and identity.
What Are The 9 Wellness Dimensions?
9 Wellness Dimensions
We Believe There Are 9 Dimensions Of Wellness That Impact Human Life.
These wellness dimensions are social, emotional, financial, environmental, creative, physical, intellectual, career, and spiritual. We use a wellness wheel model to demonstrate how all these dimensions play a role in a person’s life. In the center of our wheel is an inner circle containing the Flagler College Shield, this represents all the identities that a person brings with them as they navigate life (ex. athlete, female, first-gen college student, oldest sibling, LGBTQ+, etc.). These identities impact how a person experiences and interacts with the wellness dimensions, and, likewise, how the wellness dimensions may shape a person’s ability to express themselves through one or more of their identities.
We’ll discuss more wellness below, but you may also be interested in jumping directly to our descriptions for each of the 9 wellness dimensions or learning more about the resources available to you for improving your wellness in these areas.
It Is Normal To Not Be 100% Well In Every Dimension All The Time.
It is possible to be “well” in one dimension but not be “well” in another, but that does not mean a person is “unhealthy,” however being less “well” in one dimension may make it harder to be “well” in another dimension. No dimension is more important than another, and a person’s identities are at the core of who they are. Wellness ebbs and flows throughout a person’s life so it is possible to improve one area of wellness and maintain that new level, but it is also possible that a life event (ex. moving) may impact a dimension of wellness (ex. career wellness). We want to provide students with the education and access to resources so that they have the tools necessary to manage their wellness throughout their lives.
Each Wellness Dimension Is Distinct Even Though All Nine Work In Concert Together.
Most things we do in life involve multiple wellness dimensions overlapping. For example, a college athlete needs to manage physical wellness (to be able to play their sport), emotional wellness (to manage to get over setbacks and losses), social wellness (to cooperate with teammates), and intellectual wellness (to maintain an appropriate GPA). What wellness dimensions do you feel are at the forefront of your college experience? For some students, it may be intellectual, career, and financial wellness, but for others, it may be social, emotional, and environmental. Regardless of what dimensions are at the forefront of your college experience, you’ll need to know how your wellness in each dimension impacts you and your time at Flagler College overall.
We’re Here To Help You On Your Wellness Journey.
Our aim is to assist students in identifying what areas of wellness they would like to improve in, and how to go about improving in those areas, while also recognizing in what areas a student may already have a higher level of wellness, and assisting those students in maintaining these levels and celebrating these strengths.