Wellness is about more than exercising and eating nutritious food. It is also about maintaining healthy relationships, managing your money well and finding that elusive work-life balance.
To help residents explore all these areas and more, Lowell Community Wellness is holding an 8 Dimensions of Wellness Challenge during August. The free challenge encourages people to try a variety of activities and enter to win prizes that range from exercise DVDs to free massages.
What are the 8 Dimensions of Wellness?
Lowell Community Wellness wanted to do something new that residents maybe hadn’t encountered before.
“There have been challenges in the past, but they were mainly related to weight loss only,” explains Melissa Spino, a board member with Lowell Community Wellness. The group came across the eight dimensions of wellness concept and learned it was something Metro Health has utilized to promote better health among its employees.
The eight dimensions are as follows:
- Emotional
- Spiritual
- Intellectual
- Physical
- Environmental
- Financial
- Occupational
- Social
For the Lowell challenge, there are three suggested activities for each dimension of wellness. Out of the 24 total activities, 16 must be completed to finish the challenge.
“We came up with things that most people could do,” Spino says.
There is also a variety of options to accommodate different beliefs and abilities. For instance, in the spiritual dimension, activities include attending a worship service, praying/meditating or helping someone without any expectations. The physical dimension includes stretching, trying a new activity or drinking 6-8 glasses of water in a day.
How to Participate in the 8 Dimensions of Wellness Challenge
Those who want to participate can download a challenge form from the Lowell Community Wellness website. Hard copies can also be found at the Lowell YMCA and Pamela’s Healing Hands.
There are 24 suggested activities – three for each dimension – but only 16 need to be completed to finish the challenge. This provides flexibility for people to skip over any activities that are not a good fit for them.
The challenge runs from August 1-31, 2022, and forms must be returned by September 10, 2022 to be entered into the prize drawing.
A random drawing will be held for prizes that include a cookbook, exercise DVDs, passes to the YMCA, gift packs from Snap Fitness and more.
To be entered for a grand prize – one of two gift certificates for a massage at Pamela’s Healing Hands – participants must post a photo on Facebook that shows them completing an activity, tag Lowell Community Wellness in the post and use the hashtag #8dimentionschallengeLowell,
“We hope that [participants] will really start thinking about overall wellness,” Spino says. But above all, “We really want them to have fun.”
For more information about Lowell Community Wellness and the 8 Dimensions of Wellness Challenge, visit the group’s website and Facebook page.
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