Salubrious and its synonyms healthful and wholesome all mean favorable to the health of mind or body. Healthful implies a positive contribution to a healthy condition (as in Charles Dickens’ advice to “take more healthful exercise”). Wholesome applies to something that benefits you, builds you up, or sustains you physically, mentally, or spiritually. Louisa May Alcott used this sense in Little Women: “Work is wholesome.... It keeps us from ennui and mischief, is good for health and spirits, and gives us a sense of power and independence....” Salubrious is used similarly to both words but tends to apply chiefly to the helpful effects of climate or air.