At World Wise Beauty we celebrate ideals for wellness culture everyday but how exciting and hopeful is it, that a non-profit organization created a special GLOBAL WELLNESS DAY to celebrate wellness world-wide. I encourage you to visit their website and learn more about this special day. To get us thinking about the importance of wellness, I thought I would share this important finding from the World Health Organization (WHO). The number one health problem in the world is surprisingly not a virus or a disease. It is actually depression, which is linked to sleeplessness, stress and obesity. WHO also reports that there are 1.6 billion overweight adults globally and that most of the leading diseases are lifestyle induced.
While we spend a lot of time focused on dis-ease here in the west, I am encouraged that integrated medicine and functional medicine disciplines are now gaining traction in our healthcare systems. Because health and wellness is so much more than treating symptoms. Wellness is a state of being. I like to think of it as a ‘harmonized state of mind, body and spirit’. The quote from WHO below, captures the meaning succinctly by using the word ‘complete’. But let’s not focus on ‘perfect’, let’s instead look to ideals as we do at World Wise Beauty. There are so many wellness ideals in the world we can model and learn from. For each of us wellness is a personal and sometimes spiritual practice. We all have an inner-guru that knows what’s best for us. This is why being ‘Comfortable in Your Own Skin’ is so important, because when we are, we have a healthy relationship with ourselves, and love ourselves inside and out.
I particularly love the GEN-W section of the Global Wellness website because it focuses on children. They state, “Childhood obesity levels are running at more than 10% in all countries except Denmark, the Netherlands and Switzerland. Ireland and the United States are the only countries in which more than 25% of children report exercising for at least an hour a day.” ( The ‘one hour a day’ criterion used here follows the recommendations of the World Health Organization.) It all starts with childhood and if we want a healthy and productive society, our children’s education and health should be our top commitment.
Below is the 7 Step Manifesto from the Global Wellness initiative. As you can see, the steps to wellness are fairly easy and almost simple. Wellness wisdom has always been available to us, it’s just about making it a ‘culture’ in our lives. If we all adopt wellness lifestyle habits at home, the ‘culture of wellness’ will spread. Here’s hoping that ‘Global Wellness Day’ inspires you, and you in turn inspire others to live a healthy lifestyle. ‘One day’ full of ideas and inspiration can change the whole world!
Excerpt from Global Wellness Day…
In order to make Wellness a lifestyle, Global Wellness Day aims to adopt the following seven simple steps. What is important is not to implement all of the steps all at once, but to incorporate at least just a few of them into your daily life on a regular basis.
The 7 Steps of the Global Wellness Day Manifesto
Walk for an hour
Drink more water
Do not use plastic bottles
Eat organic foods
Do a good deed
Have a family dinner
Sleep at 10:00 pm