ACHIEVING WELLNESS

Amar Nath Mukherjee

Before dwelling on the subject, let us try to indicate the meaning of wellness. Wellness is basically a state of our body and mind which is how effectively responding and recouping from a disturbed state to a normal state. In medical parlance it can be defined as to how soon our psychosomatic system comes back to a normal state (homeostasis) from an unstable state.

For example, when we do work out or running around, obviously our heart rate increases, but when we come back to rest how soon our heart rate comes down to normal level. Similarly, breathing frequency also increases during that physical activity; it should also come down to normal breathing rate in short period in a stressful situation. We are likely to be tensed but how soon we can mentally normalize, in case of over ailment, how soon we convalesce. These are all indicative of over wellness states, both body and mind.

Now the wellness condition is largely dependent on our physical fitness and also on mental and emotional stability and status.

Our fitness criteria depend on factors which are as follows.

a)    One should have an accepted norm of body weight, i.e body mass index between 19 and 25.

b)   The waistline measurement should be less than 40 inches for men and 35 inches for women, waist to hip ratio is also important in this matter.

c)    All the major joints viz. neck, shoulder, waist, hip etc. should be adequately flexible.

d)   All the major muscles viz. back, abdominal, shoulder, hand, leg should be well toned

e)    Air intake capacity of our lungs should be well maintained so as not to be gasping for breathing on short jogging or on climbing stairs.

f)     Normal blood chemistry viz. lipid profile, hemoglobin, creatinine, sugar level etc. are to be maintained.

g)    Regular bowel movement with formed defecation should be maintained.

h)   Emotionally and mentally stable so as to be able to effectively handle the stressful situation.

There is a direct relationship between wellness and fitness states of our physiological system, which can be formulated by an abstract equation.

1.    W α F

Or W= (E+d) F

Where W= Wellness. F =Fitness, E= Exercise, d=diet

2.    W α 1/S

Or W= ( E+ d)/S x M

Where, W= wellness, S= sickness, d=diet, E= Exercise, M= Medical assistance.

To keep the balance between wellness and fitness as per the said equation (1) we must have to improve and sustain our workout and proper diet.

In the case of the equation (2) there is one ‘M’ factor that has been introduced, the implication of this ‘M’ is that when we have                          some sickness like blood pressure, diabetes, heart problems etc. only exercise and diet are not sufficient, it must have to be addressed by medical assistance.

In medical treatments there are two parts. One is preventive and other curative, now the curative part is normally expensive, at times the patients spend their major earnings and assets for curative treatment but for preventive portion the expenses are insignificant.

Regular exercise and proper diet ensure us to maintain our wellness state - that is lesser and lesser chance of getting inflicted with various diseases. We can therefore reasonably infer that all types of workouts - be it jogging, brisk walking, swimming, yoga etc. act as preventive and not curative against disease. Nevertheless, few physical culturist or yogis wrongly claim it as to be curative and sell the idea as that.

However, going back to the subject we can say that our achievement of wellness is essentially dependent on our fitness endeavor, as such wellness is the result and the fitness is our endeavor.

To conclude, must you not put at stake your wellness for your occupation lest you may terribly repent at the end of the day.

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