People often think about wellness in terms of physical health — nutrition, exercise, weight management, etc., but it is so much more. Wellness is a holistic integration of physical, mental, and spiritual well-being, fueling the body, engaging the mind, and nurturing the spirit (1). Although it always includes striving for health, it’s more about living life fully (1), and is “a lifestyle and a personalized approach to living life in a way that… allows you to become the best kind of person that your potentials, circumstances, and fate will allow” (2).
Wellness necessitates good self-stewardship, for ourselves and for those we care about and who care about us. For those in the helping professions, such as ourselves in veterinary medicine, wellness is a professional as well as personal responsibility. In order to ensure high-quality patient and client services, we have an ethical obligation to attend to our own health and well-being (3). Sufficient self-care prevents us from harming those we serve, and according to Green Cross Standards of Self Care Guidelines, no situation or person can justify neglecting it (3).
Wellness encompasses 8 mutually interdependent dimensions: physical, intellectual, emotional, social, spiritual, vocational, financial, and environmental (Table 1) (1). Attention must be given to all the dimensions, as neglect of any one over time will adversely affect the others, and ultimately one’s health, well-being, and quality of life. They do not, however, have to be equally balanced (1). We should aim, instead, to strive for a “personal harmony” that feels most authentic to us (1). We naturally have our own priorities, approaches, and aspirations, including our own views of what it means to live life fully.
