When it comes to managing your overall health, there are a number of different parts that make up the whole. Part of that overall health can be improved by working on your social wellness.
“Physical, social, spiritual, emotional, and mental, those are all aspects of your overall health,” Ashlee Bost said. Bost is a marriage and family therapist for Covenant Health.
“Social wellness is basically the relationships you have and how you interact within them, and that also means maintaining your health both outside of those relationships and within them as well,” she said.
She said there are easy ways to improve your social wellness.
“One of those is seeking out positive relationships that are reciprocal, and practicing healthy boundaries and good communications within those relationships,” she said.
Another way to do that could be as simple as changing the way you exercise.
“Take a group fitness class instead of going to the gym by yourself,” Bost said. “So that way you’re around people, getting those endorphins going, that type of thing.”
Bost said also working on the work-life balance is important.
“It sounds like a no-brainer, but that work-life balance can be difficult and we all have busy schedules and so sometimes we can’t spend times with our friends and families like we should so make sure you’re scheduling that,” Bost said.
By improving your social wellness, Bost said you can also improve your overall health.
“As human beings, we are social creatures, and so what that means is we crave relationships,” Bost said. “We do not do well in isolation, and it’s actually been shown that people that have healthy relationships and good support systems, they have better overall mood, they’re better able to deal with stress, and they have increased self esteem, so it’s really important to that overall health.”