What is wellbeing? Chances are, happiness, health, pleasure and perhaps even yoga and mindfulness spring to mind. Many people equate wellbeing with feeling warm and fuzzy or the absence of illness, but there’s actually a lot more to it.
Living according to your values, functioning well and having tools to cope when times are tough are key elements of wellbeing. And the good news is that, just like your diet or fitness level, there’s a lot you can do to manage and improve your wellbeing.
1. See wellbeing as more than just “being happy”
Popular conceptions of wellbeing that centre on pleasure and happiness – when you’re feeling good and experiencing positive emotions as endorphins gallop through your body – are what psychologists often call ‘hedonic’ wellbeing.
But simply experiencing more pleasure than pain is fleeting and usually unsustainable, says Alison Ogier-Price, vice president of the New Zealand Association of Positive Psychology.
“Feeling happy is just a temporary mood, a temporary emotion – it’s not really a state of being,” she says. “Happiness doesn’t tell us anything except how you’re feeling right now, whereas wellbeing is far more than that. It’s about how you perceive your life, what happens to you, how you respond and how well you function.”
A series of alternative approaches distinguish pleasure-seeking from a sense of wellbeing derived from living according to your values, being your true self, reaching your full potential and developing personally. This is what psychologists call ‘eudaimonic’ wellbeing or ‘flourishing’. Here in New Zealand, the Ma¯ori model, ‘te whare tapa wha’, emphasises four key aspects of health: physical, spiritual, family and mental.
“Eudaimonic wellbeing, which is also known as flourishing, is referred to as living the good life,” says Associate Professor Lindsay Oades, director of the Centre for Positive Psychology at the University of Melbourne.
“You’re living in line with your virtues and values, and you’re living with meaning, purpose and a sense of growth.”
2. Ignore pressure to be happy and perfect
The trouble with viewing wellbeing solely through a prism of happiness is that this approach doesn’t account for normal emotions like sadness, stress and anger.
In fact, research at the University of Melbourne found that perceived social pressure to be happy can lead to increased negative emotions, depression and reduced wellbeing.
“Wellbeing comes from a number of different buckets and they’re not all going to be full at the same time,” says Dr Denise Quinlan, a researcher who specialises in the science of wellbeing. “If people talk about wellbeing as just moment-to-moment happiness, there’s this pressure in the public sphere to be happy.
“As a woman, you’ve now got to have a satisfying, fulfilling job that changes the world, and you’ve got to be the perfect mother to your young renaissance children. You better do yoga, Pilates and some mindfulness – and you better be able to say you’re happy. If happiness becomes one more goal or one more stick to beat yourself with, predictably that doesn’t bode well.”
Plus, Oades says an over-reliance on pleasure seeking has its problems.
“Because this type of wellbeing is fleeting, you’ve got to get more of it and you end up on this hedonic treadmill of pleasure-seeking where you constantly feel like you need to keep replenishing it, which can become tiresome and perpetual,” he says.
3. Realise it is okay to be sad sometimes
Crucially, flourishing is more than the absence of illness, and it’s possible to flourish even if you’re affected by a mental health issue like depression or anxiety. Why? Because wellbeing is about the presence of positive emotions just as much as the absence of negative emotions.
A popular theory of wellbeing developed by psychologist Dr Martin Seligman – often credited as the founder of the positive psychology movement – describes five pillars for wellbeing: positive emotion, engagement, relationships, meaning and accomplishment (PERMA).
Under this model, wellbeing centres on striving for and having some of these positive attributes in life whether you have an illness or not.
“Whether you’ve got some symptoms of mental health issues or not doesn’t have a very direct relationship with whether you’re flourishing,” says Ogier-Price.
“You can have a lot of symptoms of mental illness but you can still be flourishing, and vice versa – people with no symptoms of mental illness that are lonely and isolated and lead empty lives may be languishing.”
Shaun Robinson, chief executive of the Mental Health Foundation of New Zealand, agrees:
“If I live with a long-term condition like bipolar disorder, for example, but I manage my symptoms and have the lifestyle and clinical support that means I feel good and function well most of the time, I have a good sense of wellbeing.”
4. Embrace the ups and downs of being alive
This distinction between feeling good and functioning well can go some way to explaining why having children – or any other kind of hard work – makes people happy.
A hedonic view of wellbeing posits that small people can reduce parents’ pleasure and mood for a period of time, making them feel unhappy.
However, children often fulfil their parents’ desire to have a family and bring purpose and meaning to their lives, which boosts eudaimonic wellbeing and enables them to flourish.
Robinson says flourishing is powerful because it allows us to move forward rather than stand still.
“Flourishing is really that state where you experience positive emotions and have resilience so that you can function well in your life,” he says.
“It includes having some ability to bounce back from knock-backs, a strong sense of self-esteem and purpose, and an ability to achieve your goals.”
What’s more, research shows that flourishing can benefit your physical as well as mental health. One study by well-known psychologist Barbara Fredrickson published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that people with high levels of eudaimonic wellbeing had a reduced risk of heart disease, neurodegenerative diseases, infections and other poor health outcomes than people with high levels of hedonic wellbeing.
“We are seeing more and more evidence of how flourishing is related to and can predict a whole lot of outcomes, such as preventing illness – including physical illness – having better relationships, performing better at work and living longer,” says Oades.
“It’s not just that people who have those things have high levels of wellbeing; there are some studies showing if you have high levels of wellbeing over time it can actually predict those positive things.”
5. Take steps to work on your wellness
So what’s the best way to improve your wellbeing?
The Mental Health Foundation of New Zealand supports a series of actions known as the ‘Five ways to wellbeing’, based on a review by the New Economics Foundation.
The 5 actions are
Connecting with other people
Being physically active
Taking notice or being present
Learning new things
Giving – time, money, support or more
“Actions across those five areas are proven to boost people’s sense of wellbeing and flourishing,” says Robinson of the Mental Health Foundation.
“They are proven through very rigorous research in everything from sports psychology to clinical psychology, neuroscience, and performance and learning theory. They’re not rocket science, but they’re very much based on science.
“I often use the five ways to wellbeing as a little bit of a checklist. If I’m feeling a little bit blue, frazzled or anxious, I’ll often think about what I’m not doing out of the five ways. Where do I need to put a bit more attention? I find it to be a very useful tool for managing my wellbeing.”
Out of the five wellbeing ways, research shows the quality of relationships is a very robust predictor of wellbeing.
“Relationships are turning out to be the most important factor of all factors towards people’s wellbeing,” says Ogier-Price.
“It’s essential that our relationships function well and we flourish in good relationships.”
The best bit is that how you tick off each of the five boxes is entirely up to you as wellbeing is very much a personal crusade. “It’s important for us all to have a model of wellbeing that makes sense to us, that we can relate to and refer back to,” says Quinlan.
“It’s really helpful to think of yourself as your own scientific experiment because what works for other people might not work for you. Some people are never going to practise mindfulness, but they may think gratitude is important or they know physical activity is their thing.
Having meaningful relationships, work you care about and things that make the day feel worthwhile is what’s important. Whether that’s winning the Nobel Prize or having a kind word with someone at the bus stop, it doesn’t really matter.”
Words Angela Tufvesson
