16 Five Ways to Wellbeing
Over the last two decades governments have been recognizing the tremendous social costs when its citizens are struggling with stress, poor mental health and chronic unhappiness. A commission that included 30 European countries set out to define and research wellbeing. The UK research team distilled findings into five themes that communities and individuals could act on to improve their overall life satisfaction.
PURPOSE:
This activity helps people to explore five simple, but profound wellbeing actions that improve quality of life. It will also help participants develop a personal wellbeing plan.
Learning Objectives
Participants will
- Reflect on their current concept of well-being.
- Discuss the European Wellbeing Survey results.
- Create an action plan that implements one wellbeing strategy.
- Analyze their wellbeing action and how it impacted their mood and energy.
Five Ways of Wellbeing Activity Directions
- Brainstorm: Ask student to think of someone who exemplifies wellbeing. Invite participants to write down five things that these people do to stay healthy and happy.
- Small Group Discussion: Divide into small groups of three. Ask participants to share the person they chose as a wellbeing role-model and explain the behaviors that they observe have contributed to their health and vitality. Together the group needs to come to consensus on what they think are the top five actions that people can take to boost wellbeing. Give them sheets of paper where they can write their top five down and post them on the wall.
- Full Group Debrief: Come back to the full group and look at the posted well-being actions and scan for commonalities and outliers.
- Share Research Findings:Explain that researchers in Europe interviewed hundred of thousands of citizens and that these are the top five themes they discovered:
The five ways to wellbeing were developed based on a review of evidence gathered in the UK government’s 2008 Foresight Project on Mental Capital and Wellbeing. The aim was to identify five actions that are simple, universal, which anyone can do on an individual level, and for which there is evidence of an association with wellbeing. They are Connect, Be Active, TakeNotice, Keep Learning and Give. For more information and activities related to the Five Ways of Wellbeing, check out this workbook resource: 5waystowellbeingresourcepackage
6. Discussion: How are these five ways of well-being are similar or different from the ones identified by the small groups?
7. Personal Reflection in writing journals. Facilitator says: Rank these five elements of wellbeing in order, from 1-5, to indicate how much you think each element is happening in your life. Choose one that you would like to focus on to take some small steps towards increased well-being. Write an action plan with one small action you will do this week. What? When? Where? Is there someone you could invite to do this with you (this increases the chance it will happen).
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