3.1 Managing your own wellbeing
Section 2.1 introduced the indicators used by the ONS to measure the level of satisfaction young adults have with different aspects of their lives. The ONS also have a simplified set of four personal wellbeing questions that have been used in a range of surveys to measure national wellbeing since 2010 (ONS, 2018). Try answering these questions now in Activity 3.
Activity 3 Four measures of personal wellbeing
Table 2 contains four questions about your feelings on aspects of your life. There are no right or wrong answers. For each of these questions, note down an answer on a scale of 0 to 10, where 0 is ‘not at all’ and 10 is ‘completely’.
Measure |
Question |
|---|---|
Life satisfaction |
Overall, how satisfied are you with your life nowadays? |
Worthwhile |
Overall, to what extent do you feel that the things you do in your life are worthwhile? |
Happiness |
Overall, how happy did you feel yesterday? |
Anxiety |
On a scale where 0 is ‘not at all anxious’ and 10 is ‘completely anxious’, overall, how anxious did you feel yesterday? |
Comment
This is a really useful little tool to regularly check in and monitor your own emotional or mental wellbeing. If you answered at the lower end of the scale for one or more questions, think about what actions you could take to improve it, and what support you might need.