Work-life balance of Wellness through Spirituality

What is wellness?

"...a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being, and not merely the absence of disease
or infirmity."
- The World Health Organization

The quality of life depends on the individual's condition of health. Good health is one which is free of
diseases. And an individual when makes a choice to live a healthy lifestyle defines Wellness. The
lifestyle of an individual recognizes all the components which are Physical, emotional, psychological,
social & intellectual. And one should take care of all these areas for a balance of wellness in one’s
life.

Workplace Wellness is the extension of individual responsibility to organizational responsibility to

take care of health by promoting healthy behaviours amongst the employees to stay fit and healthy in
all spheres or components of life. Some of the basic programs would be like stress management,
exercise or workout, health camps, etc.

Wellness program to be successful in Corporate needs support of promoters/ Leaders to implement

under a common vision. The program has to be defined with the short and long term goals for both the
employee and organization. It is a constant, consistent and continuous commitment and efforts of the
employee and employers. The process would be constantly evolved and require an investment of time
to become a culture in the organization.

Wellness is a habit, which is a state of mind. And to change a habit requires a behaviour change
which takes time and effort which is different for every individual. Therefore execution is always
challenging. So to make it successful reinforcement of the program through various touch points or
activities have to be planned along the Wellness program.

At the ground level execution of a wellness program depends upon the free flow communication
amongst the employees, flexibility to perform work, Strong and trusted Relationship and support
amongst the employees at all levels and hierarchy. This means that there should be trust, respect, love
& integrity as values in the culture of the organization.

What is the need for wellness?

The success of a program lies with individuals able to adapt to behaviour changes which can be
achieved through exposure towards training, education, skill development, support from the social
environment. The Wellness programs help these individuals adopt change towards healthy behaviours
which lead to fewer lifestyle diseases and chronic diseases resulting in reducing healthcare costs.
Below are a few points which help us understand the need for wellness in today’s time for an
organization and an individual.

1. With fit body and mind, one reduces the risk of diseases thus resulting in controlling of
healthcare cost in the organization/ Individual.
2. It increases the morale of the individual in an organization. As he feels happy and this, in
turn, increases his performance and thus leading to boosting his confidence.
3. Reduce employee absenteeism and sick leaves, which in turn reduce cost and increase
productivity. Wellness helps in making them aware of lifestyle wellness areas and also day
today factors of ill health like flu, cough and cold, etc. This gets reduced due to wellness
programs running in an organization.
 4. Productivity increases in implementing wellness programs. As this pushes the employee
to lead a healthy life, because of which the employee is energetic, active, and more focused
which results in more output and improved performance.
5. A wellness program makes the individual more responsible and accountable towards
work and the organization through its constant and consistent and continuous education,
training, constant guidance, physical activities, incentives, etc. As he/she sees and feels the
benefit of the program in its life. This makes him become more loyal towards the work and
organization.

What are the components of wellness?

Wellness is holistic. Its lot more than the physical component of health. It covers all the aspect of the
life of an Individual which are Physical, Emotional, Social, Intellectual, Spiritual, Environmental,
Occupational & financial. To improve the quality of life, one has to work on all the aspects as they all
are integrated with each other. One area ignored will impact the other areas of life and bring a
disbalance. To live a balanced life one has to cover all the aspects of Personal & Professional health
and bring changes in lifestyle best suited to the individual. Given below are 8 Holistic wellness
dimensions.

Physical- By the word it's about one's body. Taking care of your body to keep it healthy and strong
for the present and future. To maintain a healthy & fit body-
1. Eat healthily
2. Exercise every day in any form like walks, playing sports, dancing, etc.,
3. Avoid heavy dosage of Alcohol, drug or smoking,
4. A good night sleep of 6-8 hrs.
5. Drinking water

Emotional- It’s about managing one's emotions and also others. Identify stress busters to help you
manage your time to reduce stress. Recognize, understand and respect ones and others emotions or
feelings and be positive. Maintaining a Positive attitude even during adverse conditions. Accept
yourself with your values and attitude towards life enthusiastically. Appreciate self and others feelings
or emotions the way it is. Have someone you trust openly to communicate and express your feelings.
Take professional help as required. Be happy and smile.

Social- Communicating, interacting and building healthy relations with others in the social circles. Be
a part of clubs and groups of your interest. Developing long-lasting friendships, intimacy, caring &
sharing with others and also letting others do the same for you. Have a circle of close friends.
Recognize negative people in your life and stay away.

Intellectual- Invest time and money in updating yourself with knowledge or skills. Learn something
new every year to develop skills or knowledge. Be curious about things you would like to learn
lifelong and also share with others. Be open and positive towards brainstorming and
solving Intellectual challenges. Keep yourself updated on current affairs and what’s happening around
you.

Spiritual- Be connected with yourself. Find the purpose of your life and values. Bring meaning to
your life. Explore your inner world and find your passion. Meditation, spending time alone in a quiet
place are ways to strengthen your spiritual self. This gives meaning and goal to live a happy and
satisfied life.

Environmental- Giving back to the environment by taking care and protecting the natural resources
received from the earth and environments like air, water and land. Being aware and coping up with
the imbalance in nature which affects health and well-being. Taking measures to maintain and
improve the quality of life by managing daily habits of living life.
Occupational- It’s all about job satisfaction. What you do and love is the same then there is immense
satisfaction and work looks like play and fun. This is all about finding your enrichment and happiness
in work which balances your other aspects of life.

Financial- Having enough Money, honey to lead a fulfilled and satisfied life to meet all ends for the
future. To achieve this one should have Goals both long term and short term to meet financial
stability. Take informed decisions for investments as planned to achieve the goals which differ from
individual to individual.

What is the connection between productivity and wellness?

They are two sides of a coin which are integrated with each other. Both include the health of mental
and physical. Productivity is highly affected when an individual is not balanced at both the mental and
physical level. There are various reasons associated, one can be to the kind of lifestyle we lead. We
lead a fast life which increases stress levels which in turn drains our mental and physical capacity to
perform. (A survey by the Employee Benefit News magazine said that 31 per cent of respondents
rated mental illness as the number one reason for the loss of productivity.)
As seen above the need for wellness arises from lifestyle diseases, non-performance, absenteeism
amongst employees which slowly reduces the performance and growth of an organisation. The
backbone of an organization is Employees. So healthy employees will always increase performance
and productivity in an organization like an increase in attendance, performance, happiness, etc.

In both productivity and wellness, the responsibility lies in the behaviour patterns of the employees.
The success of a wellness program lies in developing the design in a way which will change the
behaviour patterns of employees moving them from ill health to good health. So the improvement in
the health behaviours leads to :

A decrease in risk towards health risk.

A decrease in medical costs.
Increase in productivity.
Reducing absenteeism in work.
Reduction in Chronic diseases related to heart, cancer, etc.

It’s simple to understand that more we invest in our employees more we get returns. So a healthy and
happy employee is more like to be productive, which the employers have now started to realise. So
investing in wellness programs will always ensure a healthy and productive organisation.

What are the challenges that corporate face due to unhealthy choices of lifestyle?

Day to day illness like flu, cold cough, viral, etc are due to low immunity which is caused due to poor
lifestyle. The Factors which add to unhealthy lifestyle diseases mostly include bad food habits, no
physical activity, less sleep or irregular sleep time, not able to follow the regular biological clock,
inappropriate body postures, technology, environmental toxins, industrial pollutants, lack of exercise,
lack of inadequate exposure to sunlight, poor nutrition, excessive intake of alcohol, etc.

These all lead to lifestyle diseases like Obesity, Diabetes, Chronic backache, hand-ache, headache,
Migraine, hypertension, Depression.

The corporates invest in wellness programs and other activities like training, mentoring, coaching to
help the employees overcome these challenges.

Given below is the table to give more clarity.

 Wellness Symptoms/ effects on Lifestyle diseases Measures Corporate
Components behaviour taking to overcome
Physical Lazy, Irritable, eating Heart disease, type 2 Yoga, Outdoor
disorders, diabetes, stroke, activities like
High BP, Obesity, trekking, marathon,
Back pain, Gym, health clubs,
Osteoporosis etc
Emotional Stress, Anger, Mental disbalance, Training,
Sadness, Anxiety Depression Counselling,
Mentoring
Social Anxiety, insecurity, Overweight, high Clubs, Teamwork,
low self- blood pressure, high training
esteem, social isolation blood sugar,
and lack of control heart disease and
over work and home smoking
life.

Intellectual Abusive, anger, Dementia, Higher education,

Depression, Talent programs,
Diabetes, Thyroid, Training for skills
Alzheimer's

Spiritual Negative Depression, Meditation

thinking, sadness,
Environmental Greying Hair, Falling diabetes, obesity, Tree Plantation, No
hair, Indigestion, heart disease, plastic, etc
lung disease, cancer,
arthritis, orthopaedic
injuries and even
brain function

Occupational heat, sound, dust, Alzheimer's disease, Wear mask,

fumes, smoke, cold, arteriosclerosis, Controlled air
and other pollutants. cancer, chronic liver condition, Air
disease/cirrhosis, purifier, etc
chronic obstructive
pulmonary disease
(COPD), diabetes,
hypertension, heart
disease,
nephritis/CRF, and
stroke.

Financial Cash crunch, Poor, Educating on

Financial
consultancy, Health
plans, investment
plans, etc

How can wellness be brought in our life?

Wellness is all about becoming aware and making a choice to lead a healthy fulfilling and enriched
life. It is dynamic and requires constant change and growth. As defined by - The National Wellness
Institute "a conscious, self-directed and evolving process of achieving full potential."

To bring wellness to our life we have to strike a work-life balance by being aware of our present
condition and then making efforts to change towards new healthy patterns of living. Given below are
a few steps which can help us lead a life of wellness.

1. Accept yourself with the flaws. One can’t do everything, every time on its own.
2. Know more about yourself to learn to manage self. Managing self leads to managing tasks
or work.
3. Recognize the trigger of stress and take accountability for the same.
4. Identify tasks which are important and unimportant. Learn to give up unimportant tasks
and focus on important tasks.
5. Learn to say no. This would help you identify what is in your platter and whether you are
free or capable to add on more work.
6. Spend time with yourself. This should be in one of the important tasks. This helps in
analysis our activities, goals, appreciating self, what works for us, etc. Also, rejuvenate and
pamper yourself.
7. Find the purpose and live your passion. When you work along with your passion live
becomes happy.