Holistic Well-being, to discuss this topic we first needed to define what the word Well-being meant to us. In brief terms Well-being is not mental state or a moment in time but more a holistic lifestyle where we are moving forward living our lives in a healthy, meaningful and valued way. My understanding from this description is that when we understand what well-being is we can then begin to understand the "whole person" .
To Understand a persons we need to firstly conduct a life interview which is a way of understanding more about them, their childhood, their learning environment, lifestyle and religious beliefs. Its through this life interview we can develop a deeper understanding of events or behaviors that have shaped the person they are today. Life interviews build trust establish repore' and show the person that we genuinely care by using our listening skills and emphatic questioning.
After the life interview and from further opportunities to build trust with the person we can than ask them to fill out a well being heat map. We should just shove the heat map in their face immediately as it could seem very judgmental and confronting, but if we work on building trust and repore' first, then we are more likely to get honest and deeper reflective answers to the well being heat map .
Assess and interpret objective and subjective well-being
Before we can assess or interpret wellbeing we must first understand the difference between subjective and objective wellbeing.
Lee Kum Sheung Defines them as follows
Objective well-being
Many countries and private institutions are interested in knowing the well-being of their people. Higher levels of objective well-being are usually characterized by higher educational attainment, safe neighborhoods, as well as economic sufficiency and stability, for instance. Thus, objective well-being is often assessed using indicators that measure aspects of education, physical and built environment, community, and economy. This approach tends to capture a societal rather than an individual perspective on well-being that is based on material, tangible and quantitative indicators.
Subjective well-being
Subjective well-being is characterized by the individual’s internal subjective assessment, based on cognitive judgments and effective reactions, of their own life as a whole. There are various sub-dimensions that investigators consider within the domain of subjective well-being. These include psychological, social, and spiritual aspects of well-being. Many scales have been developed for use in scientific studies to assess individuals’ subjective well-being across the life course.
So to summarize the assessment and interpretation process, wellbeing is measured by objective or social indicators such as educational outcome or household income. ... Subjective well-being is measured through surveys asking people about their satisfaction and happiness about multiple facets of well-being
SUBJECTIVE : How the person is felling and functioning at a point in time by using a wellbeing survey or heat map
OBJECTIVE: How we could evaluate outcomes using evidence gathered from life interview
How do we measure wellbeing
Hedonic Pleasure and happiness (subjective wellbeing) HOW ARE YOU FEELING
Eudaimonic Fulfilling ones potential and function at an optimal level , or realizing ones true nature (meaning and purpose) THE INTERNAL DYNAMIC OF LIFE STORY
Life Satisfaction Physical, psychological and social aspects of functioning (Life satisfactions surveys) QUALITY OF LIFE (PSYCHOSOCIAL)
Wellbeing Physical and psychological, relationships, spiritual, culture, career, community, finances, environment (multi dimensional wellbeing assessment) HOLISTIC WELLBEING (FLOURISHING SCALE)
In summary when we are measuring a persons wellbeing we use multifaceted psychosocial approach . We must build repore' with the person , conduct a life interview to gain a deep understanding of the person , develop deeper understanding from their wellbeing heat map which helps us establish a baseline of their wellbing and then continue the process through the year with formal and informal reviews, education about physical and mental wellbing, constant listening and learning opportunities with the person a standardized timeline for the person to complete a flourishing scale which should be 4 times per year. When we receive the results of each flourishing scale we can identify areas people need some assistance or education and conduct a review with the person to clarify the answers .
We can then establish evidence based results of the people within the organisation and the organisation can then have a deeper understanding of how they can support the wellbeing of their people. Through education, management of their physical and mental wellbeing and a stronger wellbeing processes, all based on the clustering of answers to the heat maps. (This process would be shown to the organisation in an anonymous way to protect the privacy of the people)
PHYSICAL WELLBEING supporting the physical wellbeing of a person can have multiple layers, especially in sport. Using the above process we can understand more about the people in the organization and identify areas of risk and how to manage that risk
PAIN AND INJURY MANAGEMENT, having a strong relationship with the medical department helps each department have a deeper understanding of the whole person and therefore develop a player or organizational profiling measure/procedure/survey for physical and mental
cycle of injury ; pre injury ,during rehab and post rehab (return to work)
SLEEP Sleep has huge effect on our wellbeing so developing a strong understanding of how important sleep is to the whole person is extremely important , during the education sections of the wellbeing process for the organision a strong focus would be placed on the benifits of sleep to our wellbeing . we start by introducing a sleep diary to establish a baseline sleep behavior and routine , once we review this diary we can then make changes and create a sleep optimization plan using the 90 miute sleep cycle. Sleep (Restore, replace and rebuild) has been found to aid in memory consolidation, brain processing, problem solving, and injury recovery.
Creating a solid sleep practice is the key to unlocking an important doorway to the pathway of our wellbeing.
DISORDERED BEHAVIOUR understanding the common risks and challenges that present to athletes is essential for wellbeing managers and athletes. As the wellbeing manager we can identify these risks from the life interview but its more likely we will see these behaviors develop as we build relationships and repore' with the athletes and through the flourishing scale reviews. Understanding the warning signs and symptoms of alcohol abuse , substance abuse , opioid use/abuse and gambling are vital for the wellbing manager. Knowing the biological factors, genetic predispositions and environmental influences will help us see changes in athletes behaviors quickly and allow for early intervention .
NUTRITION. In a sporting environments/organisations we need to ensure we have nutrition as a function of overall wellbeing and not simply focused on athletic performance . Education through the whole organisation about our relationship with food is extremely important so that evryone understands the physical and mental benefits that great nutrition can have. To do this we need to ha e a very strong link between the high performance team, the nutritionist and the welbing manager so that we can develop holistic nutritional plans that include performance, brain functioning and wellbeing
SUPPORTING PSYCHOLOGICAL WELLBEING
Understanding the holistic relationship between our Brain and our Body is part of the basic fundamentals of psychosocial wellbeing , to do that we need to have a very clear understanding of how both work indendantly and togther because you really cant have one without the other . I like explain this in the very simple way and that is of a RACE CARE ..
if we think of a race car its made up of three parts.
1. The frame, the wheels, the panels, the suspension the steering etc are all like the body.
2. The Motor is the heart.
3. The Oil, Petrol,Water, Cooling system, etc are fuel blood circulation and lymphatic system and nutrition
4. The Electronics and in car computer are the brain
all by themselves are an operational part of the car but the car cannot work without them all working together.
The brain has the vital role in our operating system just like a ca as it hold the key to driving all the parts and making them function in harmony and fixes or gives us alerts when we need to fix a part of our CAR/BODY or make an adjustment to work more efficiently .
The bran holds a working data base memory from learned behaviour over all the years of its life and is the only operating system known to man that can shut down , restart, repair, memorize, cleans , re learn , measure, adjust etc all in one milli second
the Brain has some basic working parts
the brain stem,-------------- CEREBELLUM, MEDULA, PONS, THALMUS
the limbic area,-------------- THE HIPPOCAMPUS (learning and memory its the message manager), THE AMYGDALA memory consolidation an emotion (fight flight freeze) , THE HYPOTHALAMAS regulates body temp , hunger, circadium rythem (sleep)
the Cortex -------------- FORNTAL LOBE (pre frontol cortex exectuive functions memory etc ), TEMPORAL LOBES comprehasion sound sna dpseach , PARIETAL LOBES(body touch psotioning ), OCCIPITAL LOBES Infomration rleated to sight)
In basic terms our brain learns from the day we are born and undergoes many changes over its lifetime and feeds our body trillions of peaces of information its constantly learning and evolving so what we learn from a very young age can remain in us for a very long time so to understand a person we need to know all their life story so we can gather as much information that we can to understand who they are now and then who we can perhaps help change or modify those learned behaviors or beliefs with new habits that are for the betterment of the persons psychosocial wellbeing .