Are Your Pillars Balanced?

Have you ever heard of the 3 pillars of the health triangle? While you may not have heard of them combined into a triangle, I can promise you that you have heard of them.

The 3 pillars of the health triangle include physical, mental, and social well-being. Now, before we break these 3 down individually, what do we all know about equilateral triangles? That’s right! They have 3 equal sides! Just like the 3 pillars, they all have equal importance.

While all 3 pillars are categorized separately, it is important to note that they all work together, and impact each other.

The pillar of physical health does not just include exercise. It also includes nutrition, sleep, and the presence of disease, health issues, or injury. In more simple terms, not only does physical health include how well your body moves, but it also includes the state of your body's condition.

The pillar of mental health tends to be a suppressed topic that many don’t like to talk about. While it is important to talk about, it doesn’t always need to have a “negative” connotation associated with it. Mental health can also be a POSITIVE in your life. Having good relationships, loving yourself, managing stress levels, having positive emotions while also balancing the negative emotions that come with life. While all of those factors are positive factors in mental health, reversing all of those aspects can also create negative mental health concerns. Learning how to properly manage them instead of suppressing them is very important in maintaining your health. Never be afraid to speak up or seek professional help.

Lastly, the pillar of social health tends to be the most “neglected”. Social health refers to how good your relationships with others are, and also the quality of those relationships. Who is in your support system? How do you manage these relationships? No relationship is perfect, but knowing how to properly manage them when they have their negative parts is important. It is also important to remember quality over quantity - it doesn’t matter how many people are in your circle, what matters is how you are being treated.

Like any other object in life that needs to be balanced, if one pillar of this triangle lacks more than the other, then the 2 other sides will decline as well. Take a moment to reflect if your 3 pillars are equal. If not, where are you lacking, and how can it be fixed?