Discover 5 Types of Wellbeing
What are the 5 types of wellbeing?
Did you know, the 5 different types of wellbeing are:
- Physical Wellbeing
- Mental Wellbeing
- Financial Wellbeing
- Social Wellbeing
- Spiritual Wellbeing
People sometimes find that a lack of wellbeing in one of these areas affects other areas of wellbeing as well, although there isn’t always a correlation.
For example, people with a lack of financial wellbeing may also suffer issues with mental wellbeing.
But people with great financial wellbeing can still suffer mental wellbeing issues.
Find out more about the 5 types of wellbeing below.
Subscribe Today
For more information about wellbeing and mental health in the workplace, subscribe our newsletter.
What is Wellbeing?
Before we get into the details of the 5 types of wellbeing, let’s take a look at what wellbeing actually means.
The simplest definition of wellbeing is of being well.
Wellbeing is about feelings of positivity, happiness, joy and comfort, or lack thereof.
You may ask yourself, how well do you feel?
This question also applies to the 5 types of wellbeing, so can you ask yourself how well you feel physically, mentally, financially, socially, and spiritually.
To help answer this question around wellbeing, it can help to create a wellbeing scale, such as scoring your feelings from 1 (not well) to 10 (very well), and tracking changes over time.
You can choose activities that you know to improve your wellbeing.
The 5 types of wellbeing in detail
1) Physical Wellbeing
Your physical wellbeing considers your physical health. How well do you physically feel?
A lack of physical wellbeing may relate to aches and pains, difficulties moving, or physically doing the things you’d like to do.
Good physically wellbeing means you physically feel healthy and can do the feasible things you want to do.
2) Mental Wellbeing
Your mental wellbeing considers your thoughts and feelings.
A lack of mental wellbeing may include issues such as anxiety, anger or depression, although issues do not need to be medically diagnosed or diagnosable. Mental wellbeing issues can also spill into the physical world as pains, including conditions from head aches to Fibromyalgia, or habits such as over eating, addictions or compulsions.
Good mental wellbeing means you mentally feel happy, motivated, confident, and enjoy engaging with the world.
3) Financial Wellbeing
Your financial wellbeing considers the adequacy and security of your financial position.
You don’t have to be a billionnaire to have good financial wellbeing, but enough to feel safe in the short and longer term.
A lack of financial wellbeing means that you lack financial security, and struggle to find the money for the things you want or need to do.
Good financial wellbeing means you have enough money to live a comfortable enough life, in a reasonable manner.
4) Social Wellbeing
Your social wellbeing considers your engagement with the people around you. This can include your relationship with neighbours, the wider community (local or online), family and friends. It ranges from intimate relations, where you can talk openly and easily with people, to people you pass in the street.
A workplace can be a place of positive social wellbeing, where colleagues regularly genuinely enjoy engaging and interacting with each other. However, some workplaces create negative social wellbeing, with toxic workplace environments or where there are relationships that are fake or disingenuous.
A lack of social wellbeing suggests that you are not easily engaging with the outside world, and may be lonely or may suffer from anxieties such as social anxiety or agoraphobia.
Good social wellbeing means that you have a good range of people that you enjoy interacting with, including people who you are very close to, groups you engage with, and your engagement in the wider community.
5) Spiritual Wellbeing
Your spirital wellbeing considers a higher sense of meaning and purpose, or a greater good. It goes beyond the individual. For some people, this will relate to religion, but this doesn’t have to be the case. It can be a shared vision and goal of a community, or relate to the arts, for example.
A lack of spiritual wellbeing can create feelings of worthlessness and concerns around why the individual themselves are here. This can be assoicated with low self-esteem and sadness or depression.
Good spiritual wellbeing can uplift the individual, beyond what is happening in the day to day, in the knowledge that there is a greater strategic purpose and meaning.
Comments and further help with workplace wellbeing
We’d really like to hear your thoughts on the 5 types of wellbeing, and will publish all the best comments. Simply add your comment below.
Or, if you would like to know more about creating wellbeing in the workplace, or the ManagingMentalHealth training, framework or certification, simply contact us today.
