4 Challenges to Wellbeing in 2021
Wellbeing is a hot topic but where to start? What are the challenges we are facing? Let’s get straight to it.
1) Distractibility. We have all felt it, reach for the phone to reply to a message and get drawn into a rabbit hole of social media and forget the reason we picked up the phone in the first place. Studies show that 47% percent of the time we aren’t paying attention to what we are doing. Are you mindfully reading this or have you got 6 other tabs open on your computer? We pride ourselves on multi-tasking but how effective is it? Are we in a constant state of distraction? Clearly, our phones, social media, 24 hr email access have a huge part to play in this. We are entering a time when self-imposed boundaries and mindfulness are becoming essential gatekeepers to our mental health.
2) Loneliness. Ironically at a point in time we are more easily connected than ever before- loneliness is rife. Loneliness is closely related to ill health, both mental and physical with alarming connections to obesity and mortality. Pre-covid 76% of the population reported moderate to high levels of loneliness, the longer term impact of the last 18 months will have to be carefully addressed.
3) Depression and negative self-talk. We know there’s a mental health crisis, the more we learn about mental health the more we realise we know so little. Depression is on the rise, 1 in 4 people suffer from mental ill health and yet 75% of people suffering from diagnosable illness will receive no treatment.
You might have heard of NAT’s (negative automatic thoughts). These are negatively framed interpretations of what we think is happening to us, usually having a detrimental impact on our mood. They are self-sabotaging and biased and we believe them. Ever started a sentence with ‘I’m always bad at….’ ‘I never….’ ‘My boss hates me…’’I’m crap at…’ the list is extensive!
When these go unchecked they eat away at our confidence, resilience and mental health. Start watching how you talk to yourself and how you talk about yourself.
4) No sense of purpose. Having a purpose in life is key, I don’t mean this in a spiritual or religious sense but having a meaning to life. So often we get stuck in the rat race and don’t stop and reflect until we hit burnout or have some kind of crisis or tragedy. We are told to value certain things- money, house, career success and often our purpose can be lost in the noise. When you haven’t identified your purpose you can often find yourself with that Sunday evening dread and spend the week looking forward to the weekend. What is your purpose? It doesn’t have to be grandiose, but what brings you joy? How often does it get sacrificed for other commitments?
“When a man does not know what harbour he is making for, no wind is the right wind’. Seneca.
Does this seem a bit gloomy? I hope not, my aim was to raise awareness and to ask yourself those question that get forgotten about in the busyness of our hectic lives. Look out for my next blog where I will be exploring how to move from surviving to thriving.