The Business Case for Wellbeing

Gallup in its study of wellbeing identifies 5 essential elements of wellbeing:

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  Career Wellbeing: how you occupy your time -- or simply liking what you do every day
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  Social Wellbeing: having strong relationships and love in your life
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  Financial Wellbeing: effectively managing your economic life
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  Physical Wellbeing: having good health and enough energy to get things done on a daily basis
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  Community Wellbeing: the sense of engagement you have with the area where you live

Managers are often so concerned about other employees that they tend to disrespect their own claims to rest and detachment from work. Hence, long hours, leave days buy-outs and heart attacks in the workplace.

This thought is particularly important now for my fellow MBA students and myself: with the exam session approaching, the valid question for everyone is: is (academic) success in the short run more important that the potential stress that you cause to your body? I know the answers that I am going to get, so the least I can do is to offer some personal advice:

• find at least 15-20 minutes for physical exercise (a jog around the block 5 times would be great :)
• drink water: hydrate yourself
• eat dark chocolate: it stimulates mental activity and provides you with the necessary amount of (relatively) good sugars
• take regular breaks and meals
• draft a study plan
• go out for an hour or two to take your mind off studies: information is best absorbed when activities are changing

... have I missed anything? Ah, yes: take it easy!