Introduction: What is Well-being?
Because the term wellness has been used loosely for decades, many have abandoned it for more generic labels (eg, health promotion). However, others, especially those who embraced and used it decades ago, continue to describe wellness as a positive lifestyle for anyone seeking to thrive, flourish, and maintain vitality and well-being. Wellness advocates and promoters do not confuse the term, first used in the 1950s by Halbert L. Dunn, MD, with topics related to prevention, health education, alternative medicine, the spa business, product promotions or other unrelated industries.
However, since so many New Age doctors, entrepreneurs, alternative medicine advocates, spa promoters, and assorted hippie hippies like actress Gwyneth Paltrow have embraced the term for their own disparate interests unrelated to personal responsibility, I decided decades ago to create a brand for authentic wellness
To distinguish my work that promotes a positive model for improving life based on the true nature and logical dimensions of positive well-being, I added the modifier REAL to the word well-being. REAL is an acronym; the four letters REAL that represent reason, exuberance, athleticism and freedom.
How is this form of wellness different?
REAL wellness is about positive approaches, perspectives, and possibilities to improve quality of life. Risk reduction, medical management, prevention, and everything else designed for cost containment in corporate wellness programming are all very well, as are medical services, medical testing, and most healthcare services. usual. But it is better not to confuse such offers with the original and genuine way of well-being. The latter implies a focus beyond (and not including) the absence of evils, dysfunctions and discontents.
REAL wellness invites continuous learning and progress toward life-affirming issues, including, but not limited to, happiness, positive passions, meaning and purpose, joy and affection, effective decision-making, and expansion of personal liberties. It’s about living the kind of life you want to enjoy while staying in top shape both physically and mentally.
If you’re going to invest time and energy in taking care of yourself, don’t settle for gadgets, diets, dilettante efforts, or anything shy of REAL wellness.
Protection of integrity and concept meaning
You can share my idea that other uses of wellbeing without this modifier are most likely FALSE wellbeing. I am pleased to announce that the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has granted me a registered trademark for REAL wellness ® .
The first person I spoke to about the REAL wellness trademark award was Dr. Grant Donovan, the Halbert L. Dunn from Australia who popularized wellness in the 1980s and 1990s Downunder and with whom I have worked closely ever since. . This is what he wrote in a congratulatory email:
Wellness has become a catch-all marketing term, on a very long continuum, for everyone from pseudo-health and medical groups to resort owners, spa promoters and tour operators. In fact, it can be hard to find a more bastardized word, in any language.So, in a completely meaningless, haphazardly assembled world that is overpopulated with humans, who are here by chance and not by choice, I see a lifestyle of wellness as a fun way to fill the time between birth and death, not a way to keep people alive to experience an insane or painful ending. That’s not REAL wellness.
Good luck getting wellness back. I hope REAL wellness helps at least a few people find a fun path into the abyss.
Don’t be fooled by those who sell services and products as if there is a shortcut or alternative to adopting a philosophy and creating/fine-tuning a lifestyle that keeps you mentally and physically fit. There are no shortcuts or effortless possibilities for genuine well-being beyond the limiting norms of the general population. To be in the moment of your game, that is, winning at life in all the most important ways, settle for nothing less than REAL wellness.
