What is wellbeing

Our wellbeing is affected by many different factors, some, we would not always consider when we think about what may be having an impact on how good we feel.

At Alpro, we are obviously concerned with food. Good, nutritious food, which contributes towards a healthy balanced diet, can be an important influencer on your wellbeing.  We are, however, also interested in other aspects of living which can affect wellbeing which we will explore here.

What is the Wellbeing index?

A team of wellbeing experts have designed this index.  Complete it and receive a wellbeing score and identify which areas of your wellbeing may need improving. It explores eight areas of our lives that research indicates are important to long term wellbeing.  These are Food, Activity and Leisure, Work and Learning, Family and Friends, Community, Health, Environment and “Me”.

How do you measure wellbeing?

Many people are sceptical about measuring something as intangible as people’s wellbeing. Surely, they argue everyone’s wellbeing is different and varies day-to-day. The consensus is, however, that wellbeing measurement is possible and also very enlightening.

There are different measurement techniques. Some researchers use brain scans and monitor people’s hormone levels, whilst others use surveys and interview techniques that ask people directly how they are faring in life. It’s this latter approach of ‘subjective’ measurement that most of the recent surge in happiness research depends on.

Food
What you eat has far-reaching effects on your wellbeing. A balanced diet is essential for good health. At the most basic level, we require enough energy and nutrients to avoid starvation and deficiencies. We all know we should try to eat our five-a-day, drink plenty of water and exercise regularly. But do we?

It is well known that obesity levels have tripled since the 1980s in the UK, due to changes in eating habits as well as low levels of physical activity. This massive rise in the numbers of overweight and obese people is a ticking time-bomb for long-term conditions such as heart disease and diabetes in the coming decades as well as for health and wellbeing.

Apart from the risk of illness, obesity is associated with other factors that impair wellbeing, such as low self-esteem, diminished social and work opportunities, and reduced physical mobility.

A recent Department of Health and Food Standards Agency survey into the habitual diets of British adults found that only 13% of men and 15% of women met the five-a-day recommendation for fruit and vegetable intake. Average saturated fat intake was above the official recommendations, and fibre intake was well below recommendations. In addition to this, many young women were not consuming enough iron.

Clearly many adults in Britain could benefit from dietary advice to improve their overall health and wellbeing.

A variety of fresh, colourful foods cooked well and presented attractively, can improve our wellbeing by increasing the pleasure that we get from food as well as providing all the nutrients we need for good health. The taste, smell and texture of foods provide pleasurable sensory benefits. Foods such as chocolate can improve our mood by providing pleasure, whilst some can impair our mood or brain functions such as alcohol, and there are some foods that help improve our moods in general.

Activity & Leisure
It is well documented how physical activity can have an impact on your wellbeing. Research clearly shows how inactivity contributes to a broad range of illnesses.

Physical activity as a part of our wellbeing works on a number of different levels.

As children, our social and physical development is greatly affected by our hobbies. This can give immediate benefits such as better cognitive functioning and greater self- esteem but can also have long lasting affects such as greater bone density.

As an active adult, your hobbies can not only affect your own wellbeing, but also that of those around you. Social interaction, motivational factors and peer group influences through active hobbies can all mean greater health and wellbeing for you, your family and your friends.

What you do and how it affects you is very individual. Your focus may be moderate, daily walking that increases calorie expenditure and improves heart health, it may be yoga, golf or swimming to relax the mind and de-stress.

For true wellbeing your activity should fit into your lifestyle, it should be something that continues to evolve yet is always attainable and consistent. It should be balanced - designed to enhance multiple factors and influence your life in a positive way.

As you grow older mobility, strength and balance are three key activity areas that will greatly affect your quality of life. Knowing how to work on these now, whether you are 25 or 95 can ensure continued wellbeing for the rest of your life.

Community
Whilst close personal relationships are important, relating to people in general also matters. In particular, being a part of your community, cultivating relationships with neighbours and engaging in meaningful projects have a very significant impact on individual's health and wellbeing.

Research on ‘social capital’ – the glue that holds communities together - shows that communities have a profound influence on our quality of life. Social capital is usually understood as the reciprocal connections among individuals within social networks. It is built through joining and being regularly involved in organised groups, local clubs and civic organisations, through developing informal social ties, like entertaining friends at home and sharing leisure activities (e.g. playing sports or music).

A common excuse for not engaging in community and voluntary activities is lack of time. Yet, it appears that busier people report higher than average levels of such participation. This seems to justify the saying “if you want something done, give it to a busy person”.

Community engagement has widespread benefits. It improves the wellbeing of others and also of those involved. Research demonstrates that doing something kind for others and giving your time increases the wellbeing of the giver. This, in itself, causes an upward positive spiral as happy people are more likely to be sociable, trust others and contribute to their communities.

The founder of the positive psychology movement, Professor Martin Seligman, identifies three ways to happiness: pleasure, engagement and meaning.

Pleasure comes from experiencing positive emotions; engagement can be obtained through work, learning and other challenging activities. However, in order to live a full life, we also need a sense of meaning.

Meaning is often found in belonging to and contributing to something larger than oneself. It comes when we step out from a natural preoccupation with ourselves and use our strengths and capacities to do something for others. When we do something meaningful, we experience an enhanced sense of wellbeing than when we do something just for personal pleasure.

Family & Friends
One of the fundamental characteristics of humanity is the ‘need to belong’. We need to have close and secure human connections. When this need is satisfied, we experience positive emotions and feelings, whilst prolonged periods of involuntary solitude are characterised by negative emotions and dissatisfaction.

Research on exceptionally happy people (the top 10%) found only one main difference between them and the rest of us. Very happy people have a rich and fulfilling social life. They spend the least time alone, have good relationships with friends and have an intimate partner. Interestingly they don’t seem any luckier in life than the rest of us in that they have a similar number of positive and negative things happening to them.

In short, other people matter, especially those close to you, like your partner, friends and family. Spending time with friends makes us happy. In fact, we seem to be the happiest when with friends, followed by being with family and being alone. However, only close friendships make a real difference, it is not the number of friends or amount of time we spend ‘socialising’ with acquaintances.

Unsurprisingly, being in love heads up the list of positive emotions. The most recent research shows that intimate relationships are the best indicators of wellbeing: 40% of married people see themselves as ‘very happy’, compared with 23% of those who have never been married. Women in stable relationships ovulate more regularly and reach menopause later than others. Children growing up within such relationships do better in terms of education, psychological health and social skills. Marriage usually leads to a rapid increase in wellbeing, which, whilst the effect wears off to a degree, married people remain happier on average than the unmarried and divorced.

Of course, it is not merely the fact of being married that predicts happiness but the quality of marriage. The important factors for marital bliss include instrumental satisfaction (financial security and sharing of domestic tasks), emotional satisfaction (social support, intimacy and sex) and companionship. However, if your relationship is really on the rocks, you can be less happy than people who are unmarried or divorced.

Work & Learning
It is hardly surprising that being happy with your work and being happy with your life have been found to affect each other. Happy people bring their cheeriness to work with them, and people who are stressed at work often find their home lives get affected too – psychologists call these “spill-over effects”.

It’s important to recognise that work is not the same as employment. Work can often be unpaid and informal. Education, voluntary activities, caring for children, elderly or disabled relatives, as well as domestic chores and DIY can all be considered as work or productive activities.

Work provides people with five categories of experience essential for wellbeing: time structure, social relationships, collective effort or purpose, social identity/status and regular activity.

Fulfilling work can bring ‘flow’ – an absorbing state of psychological engagement, where hours can pass like minutes. Flow occurs when we are challenged in a positive way, when the task is just right for our skill level. When work is beyond our capacity it creates anxiety, alternatively when the task is too easy it can quickly lead to boredom.

By the same token, increasing an employee’s wellbeing often results in an upward spiral: greater wellbeing leads to better job performance, lower absenteeism, reduced probability of leaving an employer and even more work satisfaction.

Interestingly, pay has little to do with job satisfaction, whilst good relationships with colleagues and what you do day-to-day are far more important. To begin with, pay and work conditions can increase your wellbeing, but there quickly comes a point where it can no longer be affected by these factors.

Unemployment, on the other hand, is the biggest source of unhappiness. It affects mental stability, physical health, self-esteem, feeling of control, leisure, social contacts, not to mention the loss of earnings. Research suggests that the emotional effects of unemployment have about three times the detrimental effect on people’s wellbeing as does the loss of income alone.

On the other hand, despite sharing some features with unemployment, retirement is associated with very different outcomes in terms of wellbeing. The wellbeing of the retired is, on average, greater than of those at work. This is especially the case when a retired person is engaged in voluntary work, has a strong social network and maintains an active lifestyle.

Education and learning may not make you much happier in the simple sense of this word, but they do contribute to your fulfilment and personal development. As with work, it is just as easy to become absorbed or go into ‘flow’ whilst learning. One way to achieve flow is to ensure that you are using your strengths and interests to the full. For example, if you like being critical, start any piece of work by finding what you disagree with. If you are a harmoniser, start by identifying what appeals to you.

Health
Good health is so vital for wellbeing that the two terms are often thought of as being the same thing. The constitution of the World Health Organisation states that health is a “state of complete physical, mental and social wellbeing and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity”.

Therefore, being in good health can be thought of as being able to function optimally on all levels, enabling an individual to reach their full potential in life.

It is influenced by a multitude of physiological, social and psychological factors, and the importance of these different factors to the optimum health of any individual will vary widely.

Some of these factors are fairly universal, such as maintaining a healthy weight, consuming nutritious foods, keeping physically active, giving up smoking, limiting alcohol intake to within sensible levels (according to the FSA it's 2-3 units a day for women and 3-4 units a day for men), having a fulfilling life, a safe and comfortable environment and a happy and safe sex life - these are all fundamental to health and happiness.

Good health is also about balance. The way in which we develop and work to maintain this balance will vary from individual to individual.

Realising what each life-affecting factor means to you is an important discovery. Whether it be spending quality time with friends, giving up smoking, reducing work time, walking each day or drinking plenty of water – getting the balance right on these factors will bring about good health and wellbeing.

Environment
There are many ways in which the environment is important for our wellbeing. The term environment is open to different interpretations - two of its most common meanings are the eco-system and your local environment.

It comes as no surprise that a well functioning eco-system is necessary in order to live our lives. Floods, droughts and extreme temperature fluctuations are unwelcome guests as far as our day-to-day wellbeing is concerned. Most of us are aware that in the western world we are living far beyond the planet’s capacity – if everyone in the world lived like we do in Europe, it is estimated we would need about three planets to support us!

We should also not underestimate the importance of the environment in which we live. Green spaces, such as parks, gardens or countryside, offer a welcome respite from the pressures of urban life. Moreover, trees and landscaped gardens encourage social interaction. People who live close to green open spaces have stronger social ties – they know their neighbours better, engage in more social activities and have a stronger sense of belonging.

Children and young people draw benefits by playing for longer, more creatively and co-operatively in areas with trees and grass. Moreover, green spaces seem to reduce mental fatigue, aggression and violence, resulting in improved mental health and reduced crime levels. As far as physical health is concerned, natural environments help people recover more quickly from illness and also provide significant longevity benefits.

Me
It is a common belief that we would be happier if only we had a nicer house, moved to sunnier climes, got a new job or simply earned more money.

It is a sad fact that many people sacrifice years of their lives chasing these goals in the belief that they are the key ingredients of a happier life, yet they seldom find them as satisfying as they had hoped. For example, money makes only a small and declining difference after our basic needs are met. It is known that people who have won a lottery can often end up less happy. A job promotion loses its impact on wellbeing level within three months, while moving to warm climates increases happiness only very marginally and can be entirely offset by loss of contact with family and old friends.

This is because we adapt to external changes in our lives very quickly. Moreover, when our circumstances improve, we tend to use a different measuring tape when comparing ourselves to others.

So what can make a big difference to your wellbeing? Well the good news from academic research is that up to 40% of the difference between people’s levels of wellbeing is under individual’s control. This means that it is more effective to invest your time and energies in skills and strategies that will improve your relationships, your outlook on life and allow you to pursue and develop passionate interests.
Academics talk about learned optimism, productive coping strategies, psychological engagement, people's internal focus of control and their emotional intelligence.

Think for a minute how you look at things in life: are you a glass half-full or a glass half empty person? How optimistic you are has a large effect on your wellbeing. For example, optimistic people recover from illnesses faster; they take better care of themselves; persist in the face of failure; and even win presidential elections more often than pessimists.

Learning to find pleasure and joy within your current circumstances is another possible route to enhanced wellbeing. Being content doesn’t mean abandoning change and accepting your lot in life; it is about abandoning the stress caused by internal and external conflicts. As the famous serenity prayer suggests: have the serenity to accept things you cannot change, have the courage to change the things you can, and have the wisdom and clarity to know the difference.

Chief amongst the things we can change in life is ourselves: our attitudes, our beliefs and ultimately our behaviour. This is not to say that it is easy to change but it is certainly possible. And in fact there is a whole new branch of psychology called positive psychology that helps people identify and put to good use their own strengths.

Research has shown that people achieve much more when they utilise what they are already good at, rather than trying to correct areas of weakness. Playing to your strengths feels easy, straightforward and results in higher levels of engagement and happiness. This is just one of the many things you may want to focus on.

So remember: you are your greatest potential for change.