Tag: wellness

Habits: Tip of the Week #2

Kaarin Anderson Ryan, PhD 2.8.23

While most people have bad habits they want to change, most people also have a good habit they would like to add or increase. It can be difficult to incorporate new habits into your routine, but once you do those habits will become actual habits that you don’t have to think about much. So, pick one good habit you would like to do more, and set a goal for increasing it. Take increasing exercise as an example: Maybe start with once a week and work up to daily, or start with a small amount of time each day and build up to your actual goal. Sometimes it is easier to build good habits by starting with small, manageable steps instead of trying to change everything all at once.

Habits: Tip of the Week #1

Kaarin Anderson Ryan, PhD

Breaking Bad Habits

We all have at least one bad habit we would like to break, most people probably have more than one. To help break bad habits, start with just one. Pick a habit and focus your intention over the next week on changing that habit. Something that may help you is to replace it with something else. For example, you can replace nail biting with chewing gum or using a fidget item. You can replace eating too many sweets with eating fruit. You can replace spending too much time looking at your phone with reading, drawing, or playing a game. Remember that the more you do this for any habit, the more automatic it will become.

Wellness Tip 8: Occupational Wellness

Kaarin Anderson Ryan, PhD

Last but not least, the 8th dimension of wellness is Occupational Wellness. This area focuses on finding satisfaction and enrichment from your daily work. With our occupations taking so much of our time, this is an important area for focus. It is also a challenging area as daily occupations can be stressful – from homemakers to rocket scientists, there is no shortage of stress. To help you with finding occupational wellness, try keeping an open mind about your work. What was one thing you found satisfying today? What is one thing you could try to do more effectively tomorrow? What is something in your work that sparked inspiration or joy? Take a moment to reflect on these things each day.

Welless Tip 7: Spiritual Wellness

Kaarin Anderson Ryan, PhD

Our seventh dimension for wellness is spiritual wellness. This realm helps us find meaning and purpose in our own lives. It can be found through faith, beliefs, values, or ethical principles that generally guide our actions and decisions in daily life. This week, to help build a sense of spiritual wellness, try a daily meditation or mindfulness exercise, or if you are religious, focus on daily prayer. The practices may take only a few minutes per day, or you can choose to go a little deeper and devote more significant time during the week to engage in these focused and intentional activities to improve your spiritual wellness.

Wellness Tip 6: Intellectual Wellness

Kaarin Anderson Ryan, PhD

Intellectual wellness is all about engaging your mind intentionally, seeking creative and stimulating avenues for thought and discourse. This may include anything from reading a good book to having conversations with interesting people. To stay intellectually well, it may also be important to challenge your own mind, either by listening to new perspectives or trying something new. This week, try to stretch your mind by doing one thing to expand your knowledge in one area – look up and make note of something you have been curious about, have a good conversation with someone who has a different perspective on a topic than you do, or read and article on a topic that you normally wouldn’t take the time to explore.

Wellness Tip 5: Financial Wellness

Kaarin Anderson Ryan, PhD

Financial wellness sounds like a term that would describe having wealth. In reality, financial wellness refers to having a healthy relationship with your own finances. This would include effective ways to earn money, to save money and to manage a budget. To help with your own financial wellness, try challenging yourself to reduce your spending in one simple area this month (reduce the number of times you eat out or get takeout food each week, reduce the number of coffee drinks you buy for yourself, etc.) Take the money you normally would have spent on those things and put it in a jar or move it to your savings account to help you see how much you saved.

Wellness Tip 4: Environmental Wellness

Kaarin Anderson Ryan, PhD 2.22.22

Environmental wellness involves finding yourself in environments that enhance your sense of well-being. While we can’t always choose or control our environments, we can consider our own opportunities for creating environments that help us thrive. At home or at work, you might consider adding something to your primary living space that gives you a better sense of balance – maybe a new plant, a small artisan item, aromatherapy diffuser or scented candle, or soft lighting. These types of things might help you feel more peaceful in your own space. To help with a broader sense of environmental wellness, consider what you can to to maintain or improve the health of the natural environment by making ecologically responsible choices or helping out with clean-up efforts in your local community.

Wellness Tip 2: Social Wellness

Kaarin Anderson Ryan, PhD

Our second dimension of wellness is social wellness. This is a large concept, generally including a feeling of connection with others, and a sense of having a good social support network. When things get busy, it can be difficult to prioritize socialization. This week, try reaching out to one friend or family member and carve out some time to connect with that person. This could be a video chat with someone far away, or meeting a local friend for lunch, coffee, or a walk. No matter how small the activity, it will help you foster your sense of social wellness.