The Wellness Wheel as a Health and Wellness Tool
In an effort to draw an illustration to assist clients in understanding that each of us is complex and that comprehensive health includes being healthy in many ways, the first version of the Wellness Wheel was created.
The large circle in the center represents the self, person, family system, or company. The outer circles represent areas that we either do well with or are neglected. Each area is always affected by stress. Many seeking guidance are quite proficient and feel healthy in some areas of their life. Even under stress they tend to do better or have challenges with some of these areas more commonly than others.
When using the Wellness Wheel, many factors need to be considered such as age, genetics, gender, and current circumstances.
The diagram is meant to be like an atom where the concentric wheels are moving and interacting with one another in a fluid movement. It presents a paradigm that identifies the interrelatedness of health and well-being that is inclusive of not only what you eat, but also your job satisfaction, the environment in which you live, your sexual life, and how satisfied you are with your financial well-being.
When navigating through life, each of these areas plays a major role in how we either experience happiness and satisfaction or experience unhappiness or dissatisfaction. This sense of satisfaction or happiness influences our overall health. Simply put, when one of these areas is out of balance or in distress, we experience a higher level of stress and we are more out of balance.
In addition, at any given time in our life, one of these areas may be more important than another. The Wellness Wheel also offers the opportunity to focus on one area or prioritize what needs to worked on now.
The 11 concentric circles are not arranged in any specific order. They are ever moving and one area can be located next to another area or moved again at different times in our life.
For instance, today your nutrition may be strongly linked to a medical concern, and a few months later, nutrition may be linked more strongly to the environment in which you live. Each area is important and meant to be thought provoking and seen to educate us about how complex we each are.
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