For many of us with kids, heading back to school means stocking up on antibacterial pumps, wipes for the classrooms, and multivitamins – as well as endless runs for tissues. We know that while we do our best to safeguard our kids from germs, they are, at some point, going to come across setbacks. As parents, we’ll slip into care mode and get busy making sure our kiddos get healthy as soon as possible. But health goes far beyond the physical and, as is now common knowledge, our mental, social, and even financial well-being have enormous impacts on our physical wellness. So how do we, knowing that wellness is a broad and sweeping term, arm ourselves with strategies for optimal “whole life” health?

I like to break this down into five separate categories:

Physical Health

If your body could give you a report, what would it say? Sit intentionally for a moment, taking in each major body system or start at your head and visually make your way down to your toes. What pains or discomforts have you been tolerating? Tolerating is a skill many of us have learned to use to cope – but at what point for you does it become “settling”? Many people have a litany of “little things” they rattle off when dealing with frustrations. For me, I found my back aches (once a small annoyance, chalking it up to having birthed three kids) had become a major disruptor in my life. I realized that I wasn’t just dealing with achiness, I was actually not sleeping at night. A mere nuisance can become your worst enemy if left unchallenged, so what is it for you? Write it down.