The non-profit Global Wellness Institute (GWI), the leading research organization for the global wellness industry, released its Wellness Policy Toolkit: Mental Wellness, a crucial new addition to its ongoing Wellness Policy Series.
This practical and in-depth resource presents mental wellness as a missing policy domain separate from, and complementary to, mental health policy. It details a host of actionable, inclusive mental wellness strategies—whether social prescribing, arts and cultural engagement, access to nature, or restructuring our built environment.
While there have been countless policy papers on mental health, this is the first policy report to focus on mental wellness as a key resource that can help us cope with stress and adversity while also promoting mental health. Mental wellness has been overlooked in policy, and the 85-page report is the first to give policymakers, businesses and community leaders clear, concrete strategies to tackle the most pressing crises, such as stress, loneliness and inequitable access to critical resources. The report details the many specific mental wellness pathways (and examples of global programs underway) that can support all populations, including social prescribing, arts and cultural engagement, access to nature, incorporating technology, reimagining our built environment, and practices like yoga, meditation, spirituality, sleep, healthy food, physical activity, and more.
“Supporting our mental wellness doesn’t mean we need to spend a lot of money or take an expensive trip. This toolkit will help everyone, from the newly initiated to seasoned policymakers, understand why focusing on mental wellness is so crucial,” said Tonia Callender, GWI research fellow and the report’s lead author. “The report is the first to explain the many strategies we can choose to improve our resiliency and wellbeing and to demonstrate how new mental wellness initiatives could prove the missing weapon in combatting skyrocketing rates of loneliness, anxiety and depression.”
www.globalwellnessinstitute.org
