Occupational wellness is often over looked. Occupational Wellness is not about having a job, how much money you earn or not even success. Occupational wellness is about having a sense of purpose and a sense of meaning. This could very likely be from your day job, but it can also be from a volunteer role you have within your community, it could be from raising your own children. Occupational wellness is misleadingly not always gained from your occupation.
Some people gain a sense of occupational wellness by feeling they are a ‘hard worker’ through physical labour or long work hours or possibly from being the main income source in their household giving them a feeling of providing for their family. Others need a feeling of creating positive change within their community to gain occupational wellness, sometimes by working in a caring role, or by making political change. Although all very different all can provide people with a sense of purpose, and that is the key in occupational health.
Occupational health is like all dimensions of wellness (to a point) fluid, and as we go through life can be subject to change. Although our original source of occupational health is heavily influenced by our up bringing (i.e. we may be raised with the thinking that is is important we earn a lot of money to provide for our families) as me develop and grow as adults this can change for some people (i.e. we may start to feel it is more important for us to play an active part in our community, be with our families more or dedicate time to political issues that have affected us personally). Your source of occupational wellness could even fluctuate and change multiple times throughout your life, or your may even have times where you feel lost.
However struggling to discover your source of occupational health is only one of many problems people can have will filling up their occupational health bucket.There can also be problems where people do no feel appreciated in a role that would in other circumstances meet their occupational wellness needs. there can also be situations where people are working in hostile environments which can also be a contribution to blocking sources of occupational wellbeing.
How does occupational health affect the other dimensions of wellness?
Emotional Wellness: Poor occupational health can effect your sense of purpose, increasing chances of developing depression. Poor occupational health through working in a toxic environment can also lead to stress and anxiety, once again leaving you feeling emotionally drained.
Physical Wellness: Without a sense of purpose drive for physical care can also drop. Lacking in purpose can make you feel like there is no point in eating healthy or engaging in physical activity. However taking physical care of yourself can help guide some people through rough times of occupational health. Helping them gain clarity by reducing stress and anxiety.
Social wellness: A lot a people gain social wellness through interactions while working on their occupational wellness. Wether through colleagues, clients, or people within the community. Occupational and social wellness can be very closely linked for a lot of people, and they can both make the other more enjoyable. However some personalities greatly appreciate having social interaction with people completely separated from their ‘occupation’ to allow them to compartmentalise their life. Both are healthy, but not having any social wellness within your ‘occupation’ can compromise your occupational wellness, but we all need this in varying degrees.
Intellectual wellness: Occupational wellness can be a great source of intellectual wellness. A lot of ‘occupations’ require constant learning to some degree. The majority of industries are constantly changing at a rapid pace and new learning in require to keep up. Even in more interpersonal community roles learning happens when meeting new people with new stories to tell, and as a full time parent, children are constantly changing and learning to adapt to those changes and their own individual persoanlities is also important for both of your sanity. Also taking into consideration full time carers, it is important to learn about new services and equipment available to you to make your day more beneficial to who you are caring for; not to mention the vast amount you have likely had to learn medically.
Spiritual wellness: A belief system is often the driving force of occupational wellness. Some people find this occupation in religion such as evangelists. Some find it in their ethics, I personally know some very passionate vegans who make it their life work to spread that. Some find it in their personal value to work hard. Our spiritual wellness influences a lot of our lives sometimes more subtly and sometimes as a driving force.
The factors to developing healthy and fulfilled occupational wellness are vast, and pinpointing them can take a lot of self reflection, but when considering how much occupational health can affect other dimensions of wellness it is very much worth making the space to delve into that self reflection on a regular basis to ensure you are able to fine tune your occupational health sources to get optimal benefit.
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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