Intellectual wellness is all about stimulating the mind, increasing knowledge, and boosting problem-solving skills. There are many ways to increase intellectual wellness and it’s not a one size fits all. Some things are universal such as needing water to live, needing physical activity to keep the body strong, etc. It isn’t this way with intellectual wellness because there are a vast amount of ways to learn. There are so many topics and concepts in this world and quite frankly, life would be boring if we all focused on learning the same ideas and skills.

This dimension of wellness encourages creativity and a better understanding of the world around you. It provides interests, sparks new hobbies, inspires career decisions, improves relationships, and helps develop resources. Intellectual wellness encourages learning and expanding the mind and worldly views. Eventually, this leads to curiosity which inspires trying new things and developing a well-rounded sense of interest. The main components of intellectual wellness are traveling, creating hobbies, traditional learning, and exploration of other people’s minds. Being creative in life is the key to intellectual wellness. Creativity is the birthplace of new, innovative ideas that create life and cultivate situational awareness. There are many ways to boost the brain but the top four include travel, finding hobbies, traditional means of learning, and asking for advice

Travel

Travel is an important component of intellectual wellness because it creates a sense of culture. It allows you to become culturally aware and competent. So much information comes with traveling. Have you ever gone to a different country? Chances are it’s completely different from where you live. There is a different currency, language, government, style of food, music, belief systems, and overall feeling of culture. Life is simply different in various cultures.

Traveling is important because you can research places all you want but until you experience it, it’s difficult to appreciate it. You begin to see the world from different perspectives which lead to greater situational awareness and respect of others. Traveling is an effective way to grow your mind and improve your wellness because it also promotes rest and gets you out of your day-to-day routine.

Hobbies

Everyone generally has something they enjoy doing as a hobby whether it be exercise, gaming, creating music, blogging, etc. Hobbies are an excellent way to expand intellectual wellness because it allows your mind to wander and explore creative ideas. Hobbies ensure that you have time to yourself. Maybe you’re in a band with other people but you still practice on your own and you still get in the zone when you play as a group. It forces you to escape reality for just a little while expand your interests.

Finding new hobbies challenge the mind to work in new ways and accomplish new goals. hobbies can help you develop skills and/or learn new skills that you have. This improves confidence levels and improves memory. You can meet new people, find a greater community, and even improve your professions based on finding new activities to partake in. Hobbies allow for a stress reliever to take a break when life gets overwhelming.

Traditional Learning

The means of traditional learning is the most common concept when thinking about intellectual wellness. Traditional learning means education in a classroom, through courses and textbooks, research-based facts, etc. This way of growing the mind is beneficial to learning facts and information. This can be a cool way to learn factual information on topics of interest such as history, science concepts, pop-culture, etc. Traditional learning can include reading fictional material because it still forces the mind to analyze foreign concepts.

People assume that education must come from school. Yes, getting a higher education is one way to learn but it isn’t the only. Things can be learned just by Googling and reading articles (be mindful of what you read online and only trust information from reliable sources), you can find books on just about any topic you can think of, listen to podcasts, take online courses, etc. There are so many new ways to learn, especially with the internet so readily accessible. Learning cool facts is fun because it can allow you to engage in more conversations and be aware of the latest worldly news and hot topics.

Exploration

Ask questions. Listen to stories. Request advise. Hearing life stories and advice from other people is a sure way to learn. Asking advice doesn’t mean having to take it but this allows you to hear what others think and why. Maybe someone else has gone through something that you could be facing. Hearing advice from them is an incredible way to gain perspective on what’s about to happen to you. This allows you to make more educated decisions based on what you’ve learned. Storytelling is another way to learn from others. It can be boring listening to stories your grandparents have to share but each story is an experience that you can learn and grow from.

You would be surprised how much knowledge you have from the things you’ve learned from other people. So often you don’t even realize that you’re retaining information until you’re placed in a situation that resembles what you heard. You then can take action based on past lessons that you remember from other people. This is important because advice, knowledge, and stories that come from other people aids in future decisions making. You can follow other people’s footsteps or decide to take alternate decisions based on their outcome. Explore the thoughts of others. You’d be surprised what other people know, what they believe, and why they believe it. It may even shift some of your own beliefs.