Page 4 - Welless4Life_Chapter by Cassandra S. Shaw, Ph.D., CPC

morals. You don’t have to believe in a particular faith to be a spiritual person. Remember, it’s

believing in a greater power. This also means your actions are in line with your values,
principles, morals, and beliefs. You walk the talk. You practice what you preach.

6. Intellectual

Intellectual wellness is engaging in creative and mentally stimulating activities. This

increases your knowledge. It’s not a one-time occurrence. Nor is it a few times here and there.

Intellectual wellness occurs over your lifetime. When you engage in activities, you help to
prevent, slow, or reverse cognitive decline. It should be creative, challenging, and stimulating to

your brain. There are ways to improve your intellectual wellness:

• Get oxygen to your brain through aerobic exercise. This gets the blood pumping, which
brings oxygen to the brain. Even a set of jumping jacks can help.

• Become a social butterfly. When you do, you’re 50% more likely to live longer than
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those with limited social networks.
• Avoid a stagnated brain. Engage in memory games. Practice something new, like a

musical instrument or a dance routine.
• Avoid being unproductive all the time, which is a brain at rest. When it’s resting, it’s not

stimulated. This means it’s idling, waiting for you to rev it up.

• Get out of the daily habit. When you do things without thinking, your brain is on
autopilot. This means no neurons are firing. Change something to make your brain think.

• Take up a new hobby. Or, learn something new.

Motivate More Than You need To

What’s your BIG why? This is the ultimate question when it comes to improving wellness.

To be motivated, you need to know what you want. How would you answer these questions?
• Why do you really want to improve your wellness?

• What does it really mean to you, to have wellness?

• Create a visual picture of what wellness looks like for you.
Ask yourself these questions:

4 Holt-Lundstad, J., Smith, T., & Layton, J. (2019, July 2010). Social Relationships and Mortality Risk: A Meta-analytic Review. PLiS Med 7(7).