Wellness doesn’t mean being healthy.  What?  Sure it includes that, but it’s more about your well-being than your health.  You are a  “whole person”, meaning you have multiple aspects of what makes you you, and what brings you satisfaction and vitality.  Your state of being and mindset is really powerful, and we must look at more than the absence of disease to say that you are “well”.

And as we age, it is crucial to find ways to adapt & innovate in order to maintain the highest possible quality of life.

I worked at a retirement community in Boulder, Colorado for 13 years and through training and hands-on experiences, I learned a lot about the various aspects of Wellness.  Depending whose ideals you ascribe to, there are 6 to 8 or 9 “dimensions of wellness”.

I specialized in adapting programs and services to fall into these various dimensions in order to create ample opportunities for quality of life and continued engagement with life at all stages of life.

There has been much research done on employee wellness and what that means for engagement in the workplace as well. For example-

In my experiences living in Colombia for parts of 2018 and 2019 I saw similarities and variations with how these aspects of wellness are practiced, and I gained some new insights and ideas.  Being immersed in another culture really helps gain perspective about your own…if you let it.

Resources

• Whole Person Wellness, Jan Montague https://www.seniorfitness.net/Whole_Person_Wellness.htm

• Center for Successful Aging, California State University of Fullerton http://hdcs.fullerton.edu/csa/WholePerson/about.htm

• International Council on Active Aging^®:  7 Dimensions of Wellness https://www.icaa.cc/activeagingandwellness/wellness.htm

• Healthfinder:  A U.S.  government website with health-related resources https://healthfinder.gov/

• LeadingAge^{® :} An organizational advocate for best practices and forward-thinking aging services which strive to eliminate ageism and shape the future of care & resources for older adults.  I attended Leadership Academy through this organization and had an excellent experience.  https://www.leadingage.org/

• Alzheimer’s Association^®:  Through my work with aging services I have become aware of a crisis facing our nation.  There are 5.8 million people in the US living with this terrible disease; it’s currently the 6th leading cause of death and it requires almost $300 billion per year of care and services, not to mention terrible stress and heartache for families.  Watch this short video for more stats and the realities of this current and future crisis.  https://www.alz.org/alzheimers-dementia/facts-figures