Are you involved in your community? Do you have genuine personal relationships? Why is social wellness important?

What is social wellness

Social wellness is the ability to connect with others and maintain strong personal relationships. It’s an important part of the wellness wheel and falls under the environment wedge. Being comfortable with who you are and surrounding yourself with positive people is a great way to work towards a great life and is an important step toward your fitness journey.

Here’s a dad joke for you:

Two windmills were sitting on a hill.

One asked the one humming, do you have a favorite song?

The other said, well, all my life I’ve been a heavy metal fan. Ha ha ha.

A strong social network is important, especially in times when you go through things, you have someone to lean on while you heal. It’s also important for your total wellness goal because having a workout partner or accountability partner will help you reach your goals.

It’s important for people to have good healthy relationships. 2020 has shown us that more than ever. It helps people become stronger to fight personal and community problems. We are better together. Social wellness helps people fight off anxiety, and different types of sickness improve your mood and immunity to illness.

Social wellness

Social wellness lets you share your life stories with others. This can make connections that last a lifetime. It helps you get involved in the community, growing you as a person. Learning about others and reaching out to others has so many benefits for both parties involved.

Benefits of social wellness

• Healthy interactions with others add years to your life
• It reduces the risk of stroke
• It helps fight disease
• Good social interactions encourage good habits such as communication, manners, and learning to express personal needs
• Social wellness helps with mental illness, improves memory and emotions
• Social wellness helps when coping with pain or loss

Total wellness

For total wellness improvement, you need to work in every area of the wellness wheel which are Exercise, Nutrition, Finances, Mind or spiritual and mental Environment or work, social, and home life, and Habits. It takes all of them to develop a truly healthy life and achieve total wellness.

It doesn’t happen all at once, it’s a process. So, take small actionable steps to work on every area, one at a time. You could make your goal for the new year to pick one wedge of the wellness wheel a month to focus on and make some goals to improve that wedge.

Social wellness examples

Take some time to build trust with someone you care about. Open up about your life, build your connection, and be yourself.

Volunteer and help someone in need. Do you know someone who needs a hand around their house? Do you know someone who could use a few groceries? You’ll help yourself more than even them if you give of yourself.

Join a group or club. Meet new people in your area by joining a sports team, the local theatre, or whatever you’re interested in. Maybe a quilting group or church. Or find community as well as exercise with a group fitness class.

Embrace your family and make time for them. You could plan an event or just invite them over for coffee. It doesn’t have to be anything grand. Just give your time.

Make sure to take care of negative relationships. You can’t achieve total wellness in your life without taking steps to remove toxic people from your life. If a relationship is totally one-sided or hurtful for you, let it go.

Social wellness activities

If you’re having trouble getting started, try one of these social wellness activities to get you going.

Go to the park, a fitness class, a dance class

Join groups in your community

Volunteer in your community

Get a new hobby

Take a group spa day or date night

Plan a regular lunch date with your mom or best friend (she might be the same person)

Call an old friend and catch up

Social wellness goals

Here are a few goals to work toward in your social wellness journey.

Know yourself, your limits and your needs

Own your part of your relationships, take responsibility

Stick to your word and don’t flake out on people

Don’t criticize others, worry about yourself

Appreciate yourself and what you see in others, there’s a lot of special things to see

Rekindle special relationships that you’ve let lag, you’ll be glad you put some time into it

Your social wellness is evolving all the time, so be mindful of how you treat it and yourself. You’ll begin to see small ways you can improve your overall health through social interactions and relationships with others.