Well-being

Last reviewed Wednesday, January 08, 2025

Well-being is how well your life is going overall: feeling reasonably happy and satisfied, functioning well, and having the health, relationships and resources to cope with stress. It covers physical, mental and social health. The World Health Organization defines health itself as complete physical, mental and social well-being, not just the absence of disease.

Also called: wellbeing; wellness; flourishing. Researchers separate feeling good (hedonic well-being) from meaning, growth and functioning well (eudaimonic well-being).

What shapes it

Relationships: across 22 countries in the Global Flourishing Study, including Nigeria, people more satisfied with their friendships and relationships rated their mental and physical health higher.
Health: being active and sleeping well have the strongest evidence for mood.
Money and safety: poverty, violence and insecurity raise the risk of poor mental health.
Work: WHO lists heavy workloads, little control and job insecurity as risks to mental health.
Meaning and faith: in the same study, people who attended religious services tended to flourish more.

How to improve it

The NHS suggests five steps: connect with other people, be physically active, learn new skills, give to others, and pay attention to the present moment. The evidence is modest and mostly observational. Positive psychology exercises, such as gratitude lists, give small gains in trials. None of these replaces treatment for a mental health condition.

In Nigeria

Nigeria is one of the 22 countries in the Global Flourishing Study, a large survey that measures well-being across six areas: happiness, health, meaning, character, relationships and financial security. Nigerian studies link money strain and supporting many dependants to more distress, so the cost of living is part of the picture.

Well-being vs happiness

Happiness is the feeling-good part. Well-being is wider: it includes meaning, health and how well you function. WHO describes mental health itself as a state of mental well-being. Short questionnaires such as WHO’s five-question WHO-5 measure it, and also help screen for depression.

When to get help

If your mood, energy or interest in life has been low most days for more than two weeks, it may be more than a rough patch. Try our depression assessment, and consider a licensed therapist on Mytherapist.ng who works with general mental health and well-being.

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