As the years go on, people are beginning to get a better understanding about health being more than physical.

Although your physical health is very important, there are six other components to your health: spiritual, environmental, emotional, mental, occupational and social. This may seem a bit overwhelming, but once broken down, all the pieces fall into place and create your overall health.

Spiritual health may sound like it is based on your religious beliefs; however, it has little to do with religion. Your spiritual health is affected by positive and negative things that relate to your morals and values. Your spiritual health is negatively impacted when one of your values are compromised or when you act against your morals.

Your environmental health is commonly overlooked since it is not something many people are aware of. Environmental health is affected by the world around us. For the most part, we in Canada are lucky enough to have a good environment. There is plenty of beauty around us. The environmental facet is not one of the most important aspects of your health; most others should come first, but if we continually ignore it, it can become an underlying problem that we are not aware of.

Emotional health is exactly what you think it is: your emotional wellbeing. Being emotionally healthy doesn't only rely on expressing positive emotions like joy and love but rather being able to express all emotions without becoming overwhelmed or losing control. Expressing anger and sadness and other emotions associated with negativity is very important in maintaining emotional health; keeping it all bottled up can cause serious problems both psychologically and physically.

Mental health is the general health that relates to our thoughts, knowledge and skills. Most of us are in good mental health and are able to have clear and full thoughts, retain information we acquire and the ability to learn and use various skills. It is difficult to return to a healthy mental state if the damage is severe enough, but it is not impossible.

Occupational health has to do with your life role, what you spend most of your time and energy doing. For most, this is being a student, a worker or a parent. Having good occupational health can have a major impact on your overall health since you are so often exposed to your role. If you are not happy at school or in your job, your home life could be affected. This could have an impact on your social health, or it could affect your emotional stress by causing you to become overwhelmed or depressed.

Your social health relies on your interactions with others. Having good relationships with family, friends and co-workers is essential to being socially healthy. Being supportive, understanding and listening are all key components to building the strong, meaningful and lasting relationships we all need to be happy and comfortable. Those who are exposed to prolonged social isolation usually develop mental illnesses and, in some cases, become physically ill.