Intellectual wellness is not defined by your intellectual prowess, it is defined by a state of continual learning. This state of continual learning gives us a feeling of accomplishment, deeper meaning within our world and the ability to evolve as an individual. intellectual wellness can give you a feeling of excitement over finding out new information about something that peaks your interest. Such as young children get excited, and somewhat even obsessed over a subject, the same state of joyful intellectual wellbeing can be possible in adults.
Continual learning can take many forms. Although academia is one route, it is not the only way to introduce intellectual wellness into your life. There are many sources of learning, and each of us have preferred ways to learn, where our brains absorb information to a different degree. Generally it is accepted that there are 4 leaning styles:
- Visual learners; those who learn best from images, charts and diagrams
- Auditory learners; those who learn best when information is presented vocally
- Reading/Writing learners; those who absorb information best through the written word
- Kinesthetic learners; those who learn best from doing
You can easily be a mixture of these or even a subgroup. But I suggest rather than trying to pin point your learning style to much you allow yourself to continually experiment with different ways of learning and see what you are drawn to and gives you the feeling of intellectual wellness.
No matter how you learn though, getting into the habit of being in a state of continual learning can have a great impact on your wellness as a whole, impacting the rest of your dimensions of wellness. Lets break it down:
Emotional Wellness: as part of intellectual wellness it is important to learn about our selves, to understand how to communicate our needs, and how to hear others. There are many books and wonderful psychologists and human behavioural experts to learn from taking the time to understand how our emotions work can be hugely impactful on the rest of our wellbeing.
Occupational wellness: a constant state of learning can help us improve occupationally. It can help achieve what we want optimally, whether that be to r a raise, start our own business, or be able to help more people to the best of our potential.
Physical wellness: Learning about how to take care of your body physically is a great way to hit the mark with both intellectual and physical wellness. From studying nutrition, to learning about different types of exercise of getting really deep into intellectual physical wellness and learning about biochemistry. There are a variety of different subjects to look into about how the physical body works and how we can best take care of it. And this doesn’t have to mean getting an official qualification, it can just be reading books that peak your interest or speaking to people you know who expertise in the field.
Social wellness: Leaning doesn’t always have to come in the form of books. learning from people with first hand experience is a highly valuable way of learning. Not only can you benefit from learning from others but keeping an open mind of being able to learn something from everyone makes you much more likely to actively listen in social situations which has been shown to help strengthen social relationships.
Spiritual Wellness: Spirituality is a great source of constant learning. Spirituality is a state of growth, it is being open to guidance, when you are rigid in your thinking in your spirituality you are closing yourself off. Think about any religion going to church or temple they are there to surrender to learning not just worship. Each religion has spiritual leaders to guide and spread messages of wisdom; these leaders are teachers. Now ofcourse as it is with spirituality there are probably many that disagree with me, but this is very much how i see the purpose of religious spiritual wellness. On the other hand spiritual wellness such as a cause that is bigger than yourself can often lead to opportunities for learning when you are learning about the details of the cause, jumping through hoops to help the cause, having to explain it to others – but with both forms of spiritual wellness there is a risk of hitting a stalemate. When we become so protective over our spiritual focus that we refuse to contemplate any alternative point of view we stop learning, our spiritual and intellectual wellness become unbalanced which can lead to further imbalances in our wellbeing. Being open to hearing opposing or different views does not mean you are rejecting your own.
Please be aware all information in this blog is based on my own personal experience and research, and I am not a medical professional. If you are needing advice about a medical condition, please seek advice from a medical professional.
This blog follows my personal research and learning into health and wellbeing, as well as my own personal comments on the subject matters. All blog posts contain my own personal opinions and does not reflect the opinions of any organisations I may be affiliated with. Any information I provide on my blogs is accurate and true to the best of my knowledge but there may be omissions, errors or mistakes that I am unaware of. All information presented on this blog is for informational purposes only and shouldn’t been seen as advice. I reserve the right to change how I manage or run my blog and may change the focus or content on my blog at any time
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