What is well-being?
It's how much energy you have
If you asked 100 people “What’s well-being?” you’d likely get 100 different answers.
“It’s wellness”
“Clean eating”
“Being kind to yourself”
“Exercising with friends”
“Losing weight”
These are great, but they aren’t what well-being is. They’re activities. Activities that boost well-being.
So what is it?
I believe well-being is how much energy you have, which exists on a sliding scale that ranges from feeling great to suicidal.
I’ve been at every point on that spectrum, and it frustrates me how overcomplicated the concept of well-being (and mental health) has become.
That’s why I started writing about it about it, in hope I can make things clearer for anyone who wants to feel better. Because I believe if people start looking at well-being through the lens of energy, they’ll focus on what truly matters: simple, sustainable steps to feel better and recharge.
Not weight loss gimmicks or unrealistic self-care trends that end up making them feel worse.
But what about you? What’s your definition of well-being? And what’s the one thing you do the most to boost it?
This made me think about the original medical/biological definition of "disease". What do we mean by disease? Very simply it meant, back in the day, any state in which you feel ill at ease. Quite simple but broad ranging. So disease covers everything from mental to physical health and almost any degree of severity there in. Thus the opposite of disease is ease. i.e. a feeling of comfort, free from pain etc. You don't have to feel like an olympic athlete or someone about to climb everest or a euphoric feeling seeing your favourite band live or whatever. You just need to be at ease. Some sort of neutral state or equilibrium, neither good nor bad. Anything beyond that is a bonus. Equilibrium itself is an important scientific concept. Being totally euphoric for long periods is as dangerous as being depressed in the long run. The body and mind are not made to exist in extremes for log periods of time.
So for me well being probably encompasses all those things you do than can contribute to long term equilibrium of your mental and physical states.
An interesting observation as we return from the holidays has been that almost every one of our leaders hopes we are “recharged”. Consciously or not, they are using the same language and metaphor of the battery that you use. To my mind, they are being simplistic in thinking that the very act of taking a break from work should recharge us. Where they should be focused now is on how they can support their teams to maintain “full charge” across the next 12 months. Their hope that we are recharged by a holiday is a tacit admission that work and life is inevitably draining. As you know, it need not be so.