With Mental Health Awareness Week next week, it is important to remember how our mental wellbeing affects our physical health, and vice versa.

Now that the ACC has closed the Habitatwork page, we can no longer use their model to demonstrate how the contributory factors combine to make you explode. A good model to replace this is Te Whare Tapa Whā.

Te Whare Tapa Whā is a model with 4 dimensions of wellbeing developed by Sir Mason Durie in 1984 to provide a Māori perspective on health. The dimensions are:
• taha tinana (physical wellbeing)
• taha hinengaro (mental wellbeing)
• taha wairua (spiritual wellbeing)
• taha whānau (family wellbeing).

[…]
The 4 dimensions represent the walls of a wharenui (meeting house). The wharenui’s connection with the whenua (land) forms the foundation for the other 4 dimensions.

Should one of the four dimensions be missing or in some way damaged, a person, or a collective may become ‘unbalanced’ and subsequently unwell.
— Māori health models – Te Whare Tapa Whā, Ministry of Health

More information about Te Whare Tapa Whā.

Correction: Health Navigator New Zealand. (2020, August 25). Te whare tapa whā and wellbeing. https://www.healthnavigator.org.nz/healthy-living/t/te-whare-tapa-whā-and-wellbeing/