don's report archive

by Donald B. Ardell, Ph. D.

Wellness in the Headlines
(Don's Report to the World)

The term wellness has many definitions, is applied differently in varied settings, and remains unfamiliar to a large percentage of people. First popularized by Halbert L.Dunn, M.D. some fifty years ago, “wellness” has been adopted and advanced by many organizations, most notably the National Wellness Institute (NWI) of Stevens Point, WI.

The NWI has, among many activities, sponsored highly successful week-long annual conferences for the past 25 years which have, as much as any other factor, contributed to the spread of the term and, more consequentially, the many breakthrough concepts and principles associated with it.

Of course, the NWI is not alone in promoting the wellness concept and a movement of ideas and actions associated with it. The wellness idea has been described and promoted in books (including fifteen written by yours truly), newsletters, radio programs, worksite educational initiatives, videos and assorted training materials. In summary, a great many wellness advocates, including physicians, health practitioners, fitness and other trainers and a diverse cast of individuals and institutions have, in diverse ways, added to the growing public awareness of the term. Yet, there has been little standardization; wellness means what someone says it means—at least to that person.

As you might expect, there is no regulatory organization that monitors the way in which the term wellness is defined, applied, understood or promoted.

If some TV evangelist wants to call his program “The Wellness Hour of Power,” that’s his/her prerogative. If a psychic surgeon wants to brand his/her chicanery as “creative wellness for whatever ails you,” there is no “controlling legal authority” to discourage the practice. I’m surprised that none of the candidates for president this year promised to offer wellness education along with drugs for seniors or suggested that “the wellness way to vote is to mark your ballot for me!” So, you might wonder, “Where does this leave us?” “What shall I do about this variation in the public perception and understanding of the word wellness?”

Well, in a free country where buyer beware is the watchword for the wise consumer, two steps seem self-evident:

1. It is up to each of us to decide what the word ought to mean and use it accordingly, and
2. It is incumbent upon all of us who use the term wellness around others to be clear about what we mean.

In this spirit, to paraphrase Richard Nixon, let me be perfectly clear. In my opinion, wellness is what I say it is! Which is as follows: a lifestyle, consciously chosen, intended to bring about optimal health and life satisfaction.

It has many dimensions, including physical elements (exercise, fitness and nutrition), psychological aspects (critical thinking, stress management and a wide range of skill issues dealing with relationships, emotional intelligence, humor and play and more) and other matters harder to categorize (the search for meaning and purpose). It is a positive approach to life, focused on pleasures and gains to be realized, not unpleasant states to be avoided (lifestyle diseases, for example.)

Of course, it’s a lot of other things, too, such as whatever you say it is! There are wildly different levels of wellness. In recognition of these differences of interpretation and in an effort to add a bit of clarity to the nature of the varied states of wellness that someone might realize by creating and following a wellness lifestyle, I have a suggestion: Let’s try to articulate a “Hierarchy of Wellness.”

Most health care and human potential promoters of varied stripes are familiar with Abraham Maslow’s famous “Hierarchy of Values;” let’s create a wellness version of Maslow’s hierarchy. Here’s my attempt at a first draft. Nothing scientific about this—it’s just off the top of a head (mine) that’s been filled with thoughts about wellness for a quarter of a century.

As in Maslow’s hierarchy, a wellness lifestyle requires a floor level of factors to enable the more refined, higher levels. Once this foundation is set down, the individual can without so many distractions focus on the higher states. Please consider that this hierarchy is only a personal opinion—everyone who takes the time to think about wellness might enjoy pondering (and sharing) his/her own hierarchy, which will probably change over time to some degree.

For what it’s worth, and I hope it’s plenty, here is mine. What do you think?

Ardell's Hierarchy of Values
You are living a wellness lifestyle if you are interested and motivated to pursue one or more of the following states or outcomes. If you have actually achieved one of more of these states or outcomes, you are well along in self-managing for lifestyle artistry. The latter phrase is my own way of describing the process of living a wellness lifestyle that also suggests the consequences of doing so. All of us can, by pursuing a wellness lifestyle, be artists in our own fashion.

• Meeting basic needs—you have a good education, a satisfying job, freedom from pain/dysfunctional habits (like smoking) and you enjoy a supportive environment.
• Committed to an ethic of personal responsibility—you strongly believe it is in your interest, as well as ethically sensible, to assume full accountability for your thoughts, feelings and actions. When bad things happen, you do not look for someone to blame or sue, nor do you seek excuses. Instead, you ask yourself, in so many words, “How can I make the best of this situation and, if possible, learn from it and turn the experience to my advantage?”
• Physically fit—you are devoted to and able to succeed at regular exercise and wise dining.
• Having a good time—you delight in humor and play, you worry hardly at all and your life is filled with exciting projects, adventures, causes and passions.
• Interested in and open to insights about added meaning and purpose—you enjoy pondering existential type “What’s it is all about” matters.
• While you are consciously aware of and comfortable expressing notions about the meaning of life, you remain open to new possibilities.
• Fortunately employed—you have found a way to get paid to do what you would do anyway, even if nobody paid you to do it. In other words, you love your “work”—a part of your passion.
• Sensible and serene—you are not driven to reform others, though you can and do amuse yourself pretending that everyone else is richly entitled to and interested in your ideas! You suspect that the world might be a better place if everyone would only come to his/her senses and think as you do and live as you prescribe! But, you are a bemused skeptic so, if people everywhere do not, well, “that’s their problem” as Gilda Radner used to intone.

More to follow, in time, as I get more sensible with the passing years. If you have suggestions to speed me along, I’d love to hear from you. Be well.

(Note: This essay will be filed in the archives in the MENTAL DOMAIN under the skill area of factual knowledge. Additional articles related to this theme may be found there.)

(Ed. Note: Views expressed in this and other columns are those of the author and not necessarily those of the SeekWellness Editorial Board.)

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