This is a movement that emerged in the United States and pursues the goal of achieving a healthy life through a series of key aspects, including proper stress and rest management, optimal nutrition, maintaining an active lifestyle, good sexual health, and a strong focus on hygiene and disease prevention.
Why is Physical Wellness important?
It's important because being in the best possible physical and mental state is essential to achieving the highest level of performance and enjoyment in all aspects of life: academic, professional, family, leisure, etc.
At the same time, through this philosophy, we try to reduce all those habits or customs that are not beneficial to our body and that can affect our well-being.
What are the key aspects of Physical Wellness?
Nutrition
Contrary to what many people still think, eating well doesn't mean starving yourself to death on raw lettuce for the rest of your life.
Eating well means being well-nourished, ensuring the necessary daily nutrients through a varied diet with a predominance of healthy foods, and obtaining through supplementation the nutrients we cannot obtain through diet.
And this is not only necessary to have adequate support for daily physical activity, but also for mental activity, allowing for adequate performance and a proper mind-body balance.
Sleep and rest
It is a firmly held belief that we should all sleep eight hours a day.
This doesn't always have to be the case, since depending on age and other characteristics, it may be necessary to sleep a little more, or a little less may be enough.
What is very important is to try to maintain good sleep and rest health, with an established routine regarding bedtime and wake-up time, since if we constantly disrupt our sleep cycle, this can affect the quality of our rest, our energy levels, or even be linked to fatigue, memory or mental agility problems, or affect emotional balance.
Physical activity
It's very important to understand that it's not about becoming an Olympic athlete. High-intensity physical exercise can even be counterproductive: muscle injuries, joint problems, etc.
Not all physical activity has to be a huge effort. The key, as in other areas, lies in developing and strengthening certain habits that keep us from becoming sedentary and allow us to stay active on a daily basis.
Every person is different, and the key is finding an activity that we can dedicate time to each day, that we enjoy, and that allows us to gradually increase our daily activity load, tailored to each person's abilities, so that we can enjoy the health benefits of exercise.
Relaxation and stress management
Relaxation is generally believed to be simply a mental exercise that will bring us mental benefits.
This isn't entirely true, as tension can accumulate in the muscles and cause fatigue, headaches, or back pain. Even at the hormonal level, stress can cause various unpleasant symptoms in our bodies.
These days, many of us have busy schedules, trying to squeeze in as many or as few of them as possible, creating a state of stress that ultimately proves unhealthy. It's essential to schedule time to relax at home, read, get a massage, or simply do nothing, allowing our bodies and minds to experience that much-needed state of disconnection.
Hygiene and disease prevention
We could define hygiene as the set of activities we carry out to maintain health and prevent disease.
Daily personal hygiene not only helps maintain a healthy state but can even contribute to a certain improvement in mood, becoming a fundamental habit for people suffering from certain mental health problems such as depression.
In these times of pandemic, almost all of us have completed a master's degree in disease and infection prevention (masks, hand hygiene, social distancing, etc.). To these acquired routines, we can add regular medical checkups or dental checkups to help us ensure good dental health.
Preventing disease or early intervention is much more effective in the long run than ignoring our health concerns.
Other aspects to take into account in relation to Psychological Wellness:
- Try to minimize the consumption of alcohol, tobacco, and other unhealthy habits.
- Avoid, as much as possible, contact with people who are sick with a viral infection, both actively (by avoiding leaving home if possible when you are infected) and passively (by avoiding family members or friends who are also suffering from a viral infection). It's not just about protecting ourselves, but also about protecting others.
- Self-diagnosis is never a good idea, but regular self-examination of the breast, in the case of women, or the testicles, in the case of men, can be very beneficial to try to detect any lumps or foreign bodies and to make an appointment with a specialist as soon as possible if you detect any situation that raises any concerns.
- It's best to avoid situations that we know can have a negative effect on our health as much as possible: prolonged exposure to the sun without taking the proper precautions, prolonged exposure to environments with high levels of pollution or poor air quality, or the use of medications without a prescription, especially antibiotics, as this can lead to unwanted resistance.
- Staying well hydrated is essential for good health.
- Try to ensure the necessary daily intake of vitamins and minerals, using the necessary supplements in each case to guarantee this intake.
- Try to maintain good sexual health as a natural and healthy expression of each person's personality.
- Enjoying a restorative nap whenever possible is a great way to rest and relax, as long as the duration doesn't interfere with the quality of our sleep at night.



