Research on Wellbeing

Wellbeing is a term used to describe a person's state of health, happiness and comfort. Wellbeing is a broader concept than momentary happiness, it is longer term consideration including satisfaction of life, sense of purpose and how in control of life people feel that they are. Wellbeing is something to strive towards. Wellbeing is deemed important so it is included along with health and economy when measuring national wellbeing.

New Economics definition of wellbeing is; 'Wellbeing can be understood as how people feel and how they function, both on a personal and a social level, and how they evaluate their lives as a whole.' (Mental Health, 2015). Wellbeing is difficult to nail down factors of, in regards to people's day to day lives, as well as measuring and supporting it.

People with mental health issues can have their wellbeing supported. This helps avoid reliance on the symptoms of the illness used by more traditional mental health services. These services are considered outdated by the people who use these services which are often out of line with the person's own wellbeing. There are a multitude of factors to consider when contemplating a person's wellbeing. Internal factors such as optimism and self esteem and external factors such as income, housing and social network.

When measuring wellbeing there is no one way to do it, as it is different for each person. One such method to measure wellbeing is the Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-being Scale which gives a numerical value to a selection of positively worded items such as feeling 'optimistic' and 'thinking clearly'. The numerical value of these words are counted and given a score which places a person's wellbeing on a scale. The higher result the better the wellbeing of the person.

Managing a persons wellbeing isn't always easy, there are therapies designed to help people improve their wellbeing such as CBT, mindfulness, meditation and yoga to name a few. It all depends on the person as to which method or methods are effective and how effective they can be. They should all be tried and given time to see if a person gets on with the method or not. I have been attempting to improve my wellbeing but am yet to commit to any method. I haven't given each method a fair try so I can't give an opinion on any.