July has been designated Social Wellness Month when we are all encouraged to focus on nurturing ourselves and our relationships with others. The University of California, Davis, defines Social Wellness as, “the relationships we have and how we interact with others. Our relationships can offer support during difficult times. Social wellness involves building healthy, nurturing and supportive relationships as well as fostering a genuine connection with those around you.”
The National Institutes of Health (NIH), offers the following strategies to improve your social wellness:
- Make connections with others – Social connections may help to improve health and lengthen life.
- Take care of yourself while assisting others -Caregivers often ignore themselves. Take time out to take care of yourself if someone else depends on you.
- Become active with others – Encouraging each other and holding each other accountable can build healthy and positive lifestyle attitudes and opportunities to connect.
- Shape your family’s health habits -Lead by example and encourage your children and other family members to join you in healthy activities.
- Bond with your children -Caring, sensitive, and responsive parents raise confident and emotionally healthy children. Connect with your children to prepare them to meet the world’s challenges.
- Build healthy relationships – Building and maintaining healthy relationships are essential to your emotional and physical health. At any age, you can learn how to improve upon your interpersonal skills so you do not alienate those around you who may be essential to providing support for your health and wellbeing.
Staying on top of your physical health is vital to your social wellness. To schedule an annual physical at any of our convenient Primary Medical Care Center community clinics, you may visit our website at www.primarymed.com, or call (305)751-1500 for our Miami-Dade clinic, or (954)289-0000 for our Broward clinic.
Source: https://www.nih.gov/health-information/social-wellness-toolkit
https://shcs.ucdavis.edu/wellness/social