Physical Wellbeing & Why It’s Important

When it comes to our physical wellbeing it can often be confusing as to what it actually is. In this
article, we will explain what it is, why it’s important and the things you can do to improve it!

What is Physical Wellbeing?

Physical wellbeing is the ability to maintain a healthy and balanced life without physical
limitation, physical stress, and excessive fatigue.

Our physical wellbeing refers to the physical state of our body, whether that’s maintaining a
healthy weight, good posture, well-functioning organs, or the ability to carry out normal daily
tasks without exhaustion or discomfort.

Physical wellbeing can also refer to the absence of disease or infection but these are not the only
things to consider.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) defines physical wellbeing as being a key factor when it
comes to our overall health.

Why is Physical Wellbeing Important?

When it comes to our wellbeing, the physical aspect can play a huge part in our mental and
social wellbeing.

When we take care of our physical wellbeing, it helps to align our wellbeing overall.

Having positive physical wellbeing can reduce our chances of disease and infection. The NHS
shows that many health conditions can e reduce by having positive physical wellbeing.

For example, those that exercise have a lower risk of type 2 diabetes, colon cancer, coronary
heart disease, stroke, early death, and more!
Those that exercise regularly can reduce their chances of early death by 30%!

Physical wellbeing isn’t just about exercising and doing things that impact your body positively.
It’s also about avoiding things that impact your body negatively.

Those that smoke regularly are damaging their physical wellbeing and can increase their chances
of health risks in lots of areas.

Approximately 90% of all lung cancer deaths are those that smoke.

According to the CDC, smoking is the leading cause of preventable death. Diabetes isn’t too far
behind and is said to be the fastest-growing health crisis of our time.

Both smoking-related diseases and diabetes are conditions that in most cases can be prevented by
looking after our physical wellbeing.

How Can We Improve Our Physical Wellbeing?

Diet

One of the easiest ways to improve our physical wellbeing is by maintaining a healthy and
balanced diet. If we don’t overeat and eat the right foods it gives us less chance of many of the
health concerns that exist today.

There can be lots of conflict when it comes to diet, whether that’s having a vegan or vegetarian
lifestyle, or following diets like the paleo diet. I’ll leave you to work out what’s best for you but
a key message I want you to take, is don’t eat crap.

In most cases, we all know the foods that are not good for us. Sweets, chocolate, sugary drinks,
the list goes on, and to maintain good physical wellbeing we need to limit the consumption of
this as best as possible.

Exercise
The benefits of exercise are countless and when it comes to our physical state and wellbeing,
exercise can help us massively.

Exercise has been shown to have many physical benefits, including improving;

• Muscular and cardiorespiratory fitness

• Bone health and function
• Help to maintain a healthy body weight
• Mental health and mood
• The body’s ability to manage blood sugar and insulin
• Sleep
• Chances of living longer
• Core strength & balance

The list of benefits to exercising safely and effectively are endless.

If you’re someone who struggles with exercise, why not try joining an exercise class, or starting
a couch to 5k running programme.

The couch to 5k programme is designed for people who don’t exercise and are literally starting
from a “couch potato” status

There are lots or programmes online but here’s one we found for ease of access.

Hydration

Staying hydrated is so important when is comes to maintaining a positive physical wellbeing.

The human body is approximately 60% water (depending on where you get your sources)

If you’re not staying hydrated, how do you expect your body to function efficiently and carry out
the physical tasks that it needs to.

The human brain is approximately 73% water. If you’re not staying hydrated, how can you
expect to think clearly, make good decisions and have an optimal functioning brain?
The WHO recommend drinking approximately 2 litres of pure water a day. If you’re exercising,
then your water intake should be even higher.

How Do You Promote Physical Wellbeing At Work?

It can often be difficult to promote physical wellbeing within a work environment. You don’t
want to isolate individuals or make anyone feel uncomfortable, but it’s something that needs to
be taken seriously.

A happy and healthy workforce is often a productive workforce and improving employee
physical health can have a positive impact on the business.

To promote physical wellbeing, education is key. Educating employees and individuals on the
benefits of taking care of their physical health will help them to get off to a good start.

You can offer Lunch & Learns around different physical wellbeing topics or wellbeing webinars.
These are fantastic ways to educate employees.

Other ways to promote physical wellbeing are to set challenges. Fitness challenges or health
related challenges are a great way to get people motivated to take their physical health seriously.

Challenges may include a daily step challenge or a weekly exercise challenge. Asking employees
to get involved is a great way to increase uptake and another way to focus on improving staff
wellbeing

How Can We Look After Our Physical Wellbeing While Working From Home?

Working from home has thrown many of us out of our normal routines.

Whether we were getting in our exercise by commuting to work or the train station, or stopping
off at the gym on the way to or from work, working from home has certainly had an impact on
many of our routines.

Looking after our physical health at home can be challenging, especially with the fridge within
walking distance, and even more so if you’re working from a small apartment.
However, it’s important to look after your physical wellbeing while working from home and
these few tips will help you to work towards maintaining a positive physical wellbeing while
working at home.

1. Have a good work station set up

Working from a laptop or a poor set up can impact our physical wellbeing massively. If you
don’t have a good set up, you’re more likely to suffer with neck pain, back pain and many other
physical discomforts.

Employers have an obligation to ensure they are looking after staff wellbeing and should
provide training or assessments to reduce the chances of employees experiencing physical
discomfort.

Whether that’s providing additional equipment, ergonomic chairs or monitors and laptop stands.

2. Get up and move!

The human body was built to move. It wasn’t built to sit at desks all day. Therefore, throughout
our working day we must move.

Working from home means that the majority of our meetings are online and not face to face.
Which means, where we would usually get up to walk to our next meeting, we’re losing the
movement that would occur in that time.

Individuals should aim to get up every 45 – 60 mins to get blood flowing around the
body. Studies have shown that prolonged sitting can impair the function of both the lower and
upper limbs.

3. Incorporate a daily stretching routine

Stretching has shown to have many benefits, including:

• Decrease risk of injury

• Enabling muscles to work effectively
• Increase range of motion
• Reduce muscular tightness and discomfort
• Improve posture
• Decrease back pain
• And more!

There are lots of stretching routines available online and I’d recommend to start by looking at
where your muscles are tightest and find stretches for those areas.

We have a few basic stretches on our YouTube channel so don’t hesitate to check that out.

Are There Companies That Offer Training On Physical Wellbeing?

At Loving Life, we help companies educate employees and staff on the importance of their
health and wellbeing.

Our “Improve Your Physical Health” webinar has been very popular and is a great way to
educate employees and encourage them to look after their physical health.

The session involves information on how to reduce muscular related pain and discomfort, how to
use tools and equipment to help look after our physical health, as well as simple and effective
methods to get started looking after your physical health

A happy and healthy workforce is a productive workforce.

What is emotional well-being? 8 ways to improve your mental health

Emotional well-being is an important part of holistic wellness, as it can impact your outlook
on life, your relationships, and your health. This post will share a definition of emotional
well-being, why it’s important, and practical ways to achieve it.

Taking care of your emotional well-being matters. When you’re emotionally healthy you
manage the various elements of your life and work with a range of emotions, without losing
control. You bounce back.

We’re all more aware of it right now, coming off of a year that triggered more intense
emotions for many people. But attending to your emotional well-being is always a good
investment, in good times or bad.

Life presents events that challenge you, but when you know how to face these obstacles
with a resilient mindset, your confidence in your ability to get through any circumstance is
strengthened.

What is emotional well-being?

Emotional well-being is the ability to produce positive emotions, moods, thoughts, and
feelings, and adapt when confronted with adversity and stressful situations.

One of its foundations is resilience, which allows you to navigate challenging life events.
Think of resilience like a muscle. It flexes and develops the more you use it. Resilience
impacts how you face challenges and how you think about the challenges you face.

For example, when you’re passed up for a promotion at work, do you feel motivated to jump
into a new professional development program, or do you feel resentful? Are you optimistic
that another strong opportunity will come along when the time is right, or do you feel
overwhelming disappointment that you missed this particular opportunity?

Emotional well-being allows you to focus on the positive, and manage the negative
emotions and feelings you may have in a given situation. This can help you forge stronger
relationships with those around you. For instance, the person promoted into the role you had
wanted, or the company leader who may have inadvertently overlooked you.
According to the Mental Health Foundation and the CDC:

“A positive sense of well-being…enables an individual to be able to function in society and

meet the demands of everyday life. Well-being generally includes global judgments of life
satisfaction and feelings ranging from depression to joy.”

How you deal with your range of emotions is critical.

Why is emotional well-being important?

Your resilience grows when you recognize the emotions that trigger you and express them
in a constructive manner to yourself and others.

“If we do not transform our pain, we will most assuredly transmit it — usually to those
closest to us: our family, our neighbors, our co-workers, and invariably, the most
vulnerable, our children.” - Fr. Richard Rohr

To transform that adversity, begin by observing and managing your thoughts, feelings, and
behaviors. That helps determine the actions you take and completely changes the way you
handle stressful situations and make decisions.

As you place more emphasis on your emotional well-being, you’re able to:

• Receive and offer feedback with a healthy perspective.

• Have discussions and difficult conversations with anyone.
• Establish stronger relationships.

That’s because your level of understanding, empathy, humor, and compassion increases.
You view yourself and others with less judgment.

What’s the relationship between emotional well-being and health?

Everything in your life — emotional, social, spiritual, physical, and intellectual — connects
in a state of well-being. For example, walking just 10-15 minutes a day gives your brain a
boost. That means more energy, awareness, and a healthier outlook on life. Because exercise
of any sort balances your dopamine and serotonin levels, it also improves your sleep and
reduces stress and anxiety. All of this can make you better equipped to manage your
feelings and emotions.

Each area of your well-being has the potential to impact other areas. Many research studies
focus on how poor mental well-being negatively impacts physical health — leading to an
increased risk in cancer, heart disease, and respiratory disease. And there is an emerging set
of data that is focusing on the effects of positive well-being.

For example, in a PhD project involving mental health and life stories, Rikke Jensen found a
compelling connection between what you say about yourself and your experience of well -
being. She asked 259 adults to describe up to ten specific memories in their life stories and
answer questions about whether the events were related to positive or negative aspects of
who they were. She found that life stories dominated by positive events and connections
were related to higher subjective well-being, while life stories dominated by negative events
and connections were related to lower subjective well-being.

It makes sense that your stories reflect what you’re feeling about yourself, your health, and
how you relate to others. Consider that the next time you share what happened in your day.
Take control of your emotional well-being by focusing on the positive emotions you felt,
and processing and learning from any negative experiences.

What are some emotional well-being examples?

Strong emotional well-being means you’re prepared to face events that may or may not be
in your control. When faced with a challenging situation, you might use one of these
strategies to bring yourself into a frame of mind that allows you to manage your emotions.
You breathe, ground yourself, and pause

In a stressful situation, this simple three-step process can help you better control your
emotions.

1. Breathe. When you breathe deeply, you send a message to your brain that helps
you calm down and relax.
2. Ground yourself. Hold a pen. Grab the edge of a desk. Feel the floor under your
feet. You return to the present moment and away from your challenging th oughts.
3. Pause. Wait. Now consider, “What do I really want to say?” When you know the
words that will express what you need to communicate, you are in a state of
emotional well-being.

You respond instead of react

To respond is to exercise emotional intelligence. To react is to be emotional. So how do you

consistently respond instead of react? Begin by slowing down the process.

Responding means you think through what you want to have happen in an interaction or
conflict. You are measured, thoughtful, and allow creative ideas to enter the process.

Reacting, on the other hand, is typically immediate, without thought, and often results in a
negative outcome.

You question your thoughts

The latest scientific research finds that the average person has more than six-thousand
thoughts every day. The next time a thought challenges your emotional well -being, follow a
pattern by self-Inquiry teacher Byron Katie and ask yourself these four questions:

1. Is it true? Consider whether the thought reflects how you really feel. For example,
if you think, “My life is a disaster right now,” consider whether you truly feel that
way.
 2. Is it absolutely true? Go deeper, open your mind, and question what you think you
know. If, after the first question, you thought, “Yes, my life is truly a disaster,”
consider why you think that. Are there perhaps just a few things you could change,
and can you find some things are going well?
3. How do I feel when I think that thought? Consider the emotions and feelings that
come along with a negative thought. For example, when you think your life is a
disaster, you might feel hopeless, anxious, or melancholy.
4. Who would I be without that thought? Now, imagine your life without that negative
thought. For example, you might be happier, more motivated, and more focused if
you thought your life was wonderful. Consider which thoughts and feelings you
prefer and make a conscious decision to focus on that.

To wrap up this practice, use the final step of turning around the initial thought that
challenged your well-being. Come up with three reasons why your new thought might be
true. The practice of questioning and then turning your thoughts around offers you a
concrete way to return to a state of emotional well-being.

How can you improve your emotional well-being?

Your range of emotions—and how you manage them—influences your emotional health.
Here are eight ways you can control your emotions and feelings, and stay resilient:

1. Move your body. Do some sort of physical activity every 90 minutes. Exercise.
Dance. Fold laundry. Weather permitting, get outside. Walk around the block. Run.
Visit a park.
2. Establish a routine. Create a schedule that balances the work you do with the life
you want. Set time for your meetings. Block space to set goals. Create room to
read. Cook a new dish. Listen to music.
3. Connect with others. Love on your family. Check in with those who support you.
Ask for help. Learn something out of your comfort zone. Spend time with someone
who you respect.
 4. Forgive. Forgive others and forgive yourself. Forgiveness frees you to keep your
power. Forgiveness opens the path to live in the moment. Forgiveness allows for
growth and happiness.
5. Do something for others. Offer to do something for someone you know or don’t
know, for which you cannot be repaid. Pick up groceries for a neighbor. Volunteer
online. Send a thank you note.
6. Sleep. Healthy sleep gives your body the chance to repair itself. Sleep refreshes
your brain to manage your memories and process information. You wake up in a
better mood.
7. Be kind to yourself. What gives you joy? Where are you most at peace? When do
you have space to be you? As you are kind to yourself, you will want to extend that
kindness beyond yourself.
8. Be self-aware. Notice the thoughts, actions, habits, and character traits that serve
you well. And when you spot what needs to change, you’ll be ready. You will
simply know.

Final thoughts on emotional well-being

“Watch your thoughts; they become words. Watch your words; they become actions. Watch
your actions; they become habits. Watch your habits; they become character. Watch your
character; it becomes your destiny.” - Lao Tzu

You become more resilient as you encounter and master any situation. Whenever you have
doubts, and you will, remember that you have everything you need to take care of your
emotional well-being.

Intellectual well-being
Intellectual wellness refers to active participation in scholastic, cultural, and community
activities. It is important to gain and maintain intellectual wellness because it expands knowledge
and skills in order to live a stimulating, successful life. In order to improve intellectual wellness,
it is important to value creativity, curiosity, and lifelong learning.

Eight simple steps to increase your intellectual wellness

Read for fun.

It may be hard to do when you are spending most of your time doing required homework and
readings, but try to find time during the morning, night, or weekend to sit down and read
something for fun. Reading, especially something you enjoy, can improve your intellect by
stretching your mind to think about things you normally don’t think about!

Debate an issue with a friend, but choose the viewpoint opposite the one you hold.
Sounds tricky, right? That’s the point! Focusing attention on information that is different than
your beliefs can improve intellectual wellness. Naturally, we tend to only focus our attention on
opinions, beliefs, and facts that hold true to our viewpoints. When you expose the mind to
opposing ideas, it expands the mind to grasp new information.

Improve your skills for studying and learning.

Learning new things about the way your mind processes information can be a vital tool to
helping you succeed.

Learn a foreign language.

Learning a foreign language can be beneficial to your intellectual health and your employment
prospects. When learning different ways to communicate, your mind expands. This not only
helps with being receptive to new knowledge, but also helps broaden information already
learned.

Play a game.
Board games and cards are popularly known as leisure activities. These activities can also help
with your intellectual wellness. The next time you have free time, pick up a deck of cards or pull
out a board game and play! It makes no difference whether you are playing alone or you are
playing with others. As long as your mind is thinking, improvements are being made.

Play a musical instrument.

Music has a powerful impact on our minds. Playing a musical instrument can increase
intellectual wellness by learning how to create sounds, make patterns, and emote through music.
Any instrument can work to increase intellectual wellness, so start today and take up a new
hobby.

Write down your thoughts or journal frequently.

Taking the time to write down thoughts or journal frequently can help those who struggle with
expressing their feelings or in general for anyone who is trying to make sense of what they are
feeling inside. Being able to identify your feelings and understanding yourself more and your
actions increase intellectual wellness by exposing your mind to deeper thinking.

Do crossword or sudoku puzzles.

Crosswords and Sudoku are leisure activities that have proved to increase intellectual wellness.
Working through puzzles or finding words in patterns uses a great amount of brain power.
Increasing your ability to work through these activities can maintain and build your intellectual
wellness.

Morality and Well-being

Final Author Copy; To be published in Encyclopedia of Quality of Life and Well-Being Research, ed. by
A. Michalos (Springer)

Synonyms

Ethics, obligations, right and wrong (from the Latin word ‘moralitas’ meaning ‘manner’ or ‘proper
behaviour’); quality of life, welfare, prudential value, good life, what is good for a person.

Definition

The notion of wellbeing is one of the most fundamental concepts in moral philosophy. When moral
philosophers discuss wellbeing, they are interested in what are the most basic elements of good lives.
The positive morality of a society is the set of moral norms which the members of that society share. It is
likely that there is a connection between the positive morality of a society in this sense and wellbeing.
This is because societies whose moralities promote wellbeing are more likely to survive and thrive in the
evolutionary competition (see Joyce 2006).

However, the main research focus of moral philosophers is not morality in this anthropological sense.
Rather, ethicists are more interested in which acts really are right and which ones wrong. This normative
investigation is based on the assumption that the widely held moral beliefs of a society can be mistaken.
Throughout the history of ethics, most moral philosophers have agreed that there is an intimate
connection between what constitutes a good life and what we ought to do morally speaking. However,
what this connection exactly is continues to divide opinions.

Description

On the most general level, there are three main positions concerning what the connection between
morality and wellbeing is. The first of these alternatives is a family of views which all begin by first
specifying a notion of wellbeing that is independent of any moral considerations. These views then
attempt to capture the standards of right and wrong with the help of that notion.

When it comes to the philosophical views about wellbeing in this morally neutral sense, there are three
main alternatives (Parfit 1984, app. I). The so-called hedonist theories of wellbeing claim that wellbeing
consists of the balance of pleasures and pains over time where pleasures are understood as intrinsically
pleasant experiences or as experiences one desires to have (for a more sophisticated version of hedonism,
see Feldman 2004). The so-called preference-satisfaction theories, in contrast, claim that wellbeing
consists of the satisfaction of one’s idealised self-regarding preferences (Brandt 1979, ch. 13). Finally, the
so-called objective list theories provide a list of goods the having of which makes our lives go better
independently of our attitudes towards the goods on the list (Griffin 1986). The list of goods provided by
the defenders of these views usually includes things like friendship, health, knowledge, autonomy,
achievement, and so on.

There are various ways in which such ethically neutral conceptions of wellbeing can be used to capture
what is right and wrong. Here the assumption is that the content of the correct ethical standards refers to
the wellbeing of people. For example, egoists have always thought that morally right actions maximise
the agent’s own wellbeing over her lifetime. This means that, according to the egoists, the demands of
prudence and morality perfectly overlap. Such views use wellbeing as a currency to compare how good
the agent’s different options are for her both prudentially and morally speaking. The traditional arguments
for the egoist views are often based on the thought that, because agents cannot be motivated by anything
other than their own well-being, therefore promoting their own wellbeing is the only thing that can be
required of them.

Consequentialists, in contrast, claim that, when it comes to the rightness and wrongness of our acts,
everyone’s wellbeing matters equally (for a locus classicus, see Mill 1998 [1861]). Hence, most
consequentialists believe that one ought to always act in the way that maximises the total amount of
wellbeing in the world generally. This view is motivated by the thought that, if wellbeing is what matters
fundamentally, then it cannot be morally relevant whose wellbeing happens to be in question (Mill 1998
[1861], pp. 81–82).

The notion of wellbeing can also be used to construct more sophisticated views in ethics and political
philosophy. According to some people, wellbeing can, for example, be used as the currency which can be
used to weigh the strength of the ethical claims of different parties in the conflicts of interests. On such
views, making a decision about whether to adopt a new health care policy, for example, requires first
investigating what kind of effects the policy would have on the wellbeing of those who will be affected by
it, and then comparing whether the improvements on one group’s quality of life would justify sacrificing
the wellbeing of others (see Broome 2004). This framework has lead to interesting discussions about
whether and how wellbeing could be measured for the purposes of the previous kind of quantitative
comparisons (Tiberius & Plakias 2010). Finally, some political philosophers have argued that, in so far as
states should treat their citizens equally, they should promote the wellbeing of everyone equally or at least
guarantee everyone equal opportunities for wellbeing (Cohen 1989).

The morally neutral notions of wellbeing can also be used to construct more complex pluralist ethical
views. There is a tradition of thought according to which we are faced with inevitably conflicting
demands on us (Crisp 1996). For example, one fairly intuitively appealing view of this kind claims that
prudence requires us to promote our own wellbeing whereas morality creates a competing demand on us
to promote the wellbeing of others. Some philosophers have argued that, in this situation, all we can do is
to deal with such conflicts case by case. However, many important works in moral philosophy have
attempted to show that, in fact, there is no conflict between the demands of prudence and morality (Plato
1994 [c. 370BC], Gauthier 1986). If such proofs could be carried out successfully, then one would be able
to make one’s own life go best by complying with the moral standards that aim at promoting everyone’s
wellbeing.

The second broad category of views holds that it is impossible to give a plausible account of the
wellbeing of an individual independently of considering what is right and wrong. In the Aristotelian
tradition, this type of views often hold that acting morally is a fundamental constituent of a good life, and
therefore wellbeing cannot be understood without taking into account what morality requires from us. The
following will be just a brief outline of one such view (see Aristotle 2009 [c. 350BC], Foot 2001). There
are, of course, many different ways to develop the views of this type further.

Aristotelians often begin from the thought that living a good life requires being able to participate
successfully in the activities that are specific to one’s species. One fundamental activity that is typical for
human beings is living together with others in political communities. What is moral and just is then
understood in terms of the excellences that enable one to interact with others successfully in one’s
community. This view means that acting morally cannot be merely instrumental for living one’s life
successfully in one’s community. Rather, if the view is correct, then doing so is constitutive of living well
the kind of a social life that is natural for human beings. For this reason, Aristotelians tend to consider
acting morally to be constitutive of living a good human life. This also explains why, according to them,
wellbeing cannot be understood independently of morality (see Kraut 2007). So, in summary, much of the
work in moral philosophy has focused on attempting to capture the intimate connection between morality
and wellbeing. However, it is fair to say that not everyone has been convinced that there even is a
connection between the two notions. Immanuel Kant, for example believed that the moral worth of one’s
actions depends only on the universal form of one’s willing (Kant 1998 [1785]). This is because the moral
nature of one’s actions must be something one can control. In contrast, one’s wellbeing and happiness
depend much more on one’s luck – on whether the world happens to co-operate in the satisfaction of
one’s will. This somewhat arbitrary nature of wellbeing and happiness is why Kant thought that these
notions cannot be fundamental ethical notions. More recently, T.M. Scanlon has provided an interesting
new argument to the conclusion that the notion of wellbeing cannot play an important role in ethical
theorising (Scanlon 1998, ch. 3). According to Scanlon, wellbeing is a ‘transparent’ good. That is, when
we plan our lives from our first-personal deliberative perspectives, we rarely consider wellbeing as such
but rather what projects we have reasons to pursue. Many of these rational aims we adopt will contribute
to our wellbeing but often whether this is the case is rather vague and not very important for us. If
Scanlon is correct about this, then it is not clear whether wellbeing could be used as a currency to
compare the strength of our ethical claims either. Rather, in this situation, it seems that what duties
towards other people we have should, instead of wellbeing, be more sensitive to the basic firstorder moral
considerations such as whether others are harmed or benefitted in some specific ways that matter to them.
Some of these morally salient considerations will be related to wellbeing whereas others will not be so in
any obvious way.