End of the road

After reviewing unit 3 personal assessment of my psychological, physical, and spiritual wellness and at the time I had scored myself at a 6, 8, 4 (respectively).  At this point my scores would be dramatically lower because I have been dealing with an ill relative and have let some of my goals fall by the wayside.  At this time I would rate my physical at a 4, spiritual at a 2, and psychological at about a 4.

The goals I set for myself; to workout and eat better, attend church and pray, and learn how to manage stress are still goals that I will try and strive to achieve.  But at this time I am barely able to keep myself going and make sure my family member is taken care of also.

I will implement all my strategies once everything has settled down; learning how to take care of myself without feeling guilt will be outstanding.

This course has taught me some great practices that I would like to incorporate into my daily schedule to help become healthy and happier.  The most difficult thing about this course was trying to find the time to practice the methods introduced.  Other than that I throughly enjoyed this course.

My Plan for Health and Wellness

INTRODUCTION:

            Why is it important for health and wellness professionals to develop psychologically, spiritually, and physically?  What areas do you need to develop to achieve the goals you have for yourself?  It is important for health and wellness professionals to develop psychologically, spiritually, and physically to better understand the whole person, integral health.  The body/mind/spirit connection has the ability to heal from the inside out.  Every domain (physical, psychological, and spiritual) can be improved upon because there is always something new to be learned.  I believe that with a constant longing to better ones’ self it can be easy to achieve the goal of health and wellness.  The goals that I’ve set for myself are small but with each small goal it will lead to the ultimate goal of integral health.  Personally I need to develop in each area to achieve my ultimate goal. 

ASSESSMENT:

            How have you assessed your health in each domain?  How do you score your wellness spiritually, physically, and psychologically?  Looking at the text and listening to the exercises in this course has made me look at each of the domains to see how I compare.  As far as giving a score I believe that I would be at about a C physically, D psychologically, and a D- spiritually.  Physically, at a point in time I was very active and getting healthy, besides working out I was eating right.  Now that I’ve got a lot of stress and outside problems going on my activity level has decreased and my diet has been poor to say the least.  Some days I miss meals and have terrible headaches.  Psychologically I’m beating myself up over every decision that has been right at the time but ultimately turned out wrong.  Stress management is deficient plus sleep and social activities are suffering. 

 GOAL DEVELOPMENT:

            List at least one goal you have for yourself in each area: Physical, Psychological (mental health) and Spiritual.  A couple goals that I have for myself are:

• Physical
• Return to working out at least 3 times a week for 30 minutes.
• Eat a more balanced diet; include more fruits and vegetables.
• Psychological
• Learn some meditation routines and set aside 5 minutes (morning and evening) to practice.
• Talk to someone to get things off my chest.
• Spiritual
• Find a spiritual advisor; even if it is someone on TV like Tony Robbins or Deepak Chopra
• Find a church and start attending regularly.

PRACTICES FOR PERSONAL HEALTH:

            What strategies can you implement to foster growth in each of the following domains: Physical, Psychological, and Spiritual?  Provide at least two examples of exercises or practices in each domain.  Explain how you will implement each example.  Strategies that I can implement to foster growth in each of the following domains are:

Physical — become healthier with physical activity and diet.  Two exercises I can use to help will be going to the gym for at least 30 minutes a day, splitting my time between the bike, elliptical, and treadmill.  As for the diet there needs to be at least 5 servings of fruits and vegetables daily; at this point there is one, if that daily.  Going to start carrying a little snack bag of either fruits or vegetables to have as a snack whenever the urge to pick up a candy bar hits.

Psychological — Take time to just relax and unwind without any type of interruption; this may mean that I have to stay up later after my son goes to bed to do it but being able to have peace of mind far outweighs the little sleep I would be missing.  Another practice that would be beneficial is to go back through the text and find a meditation that works and hone my skills, from there move onto another one until I have mastered a few and am able to do them well.  Doing these meditation practices I believe will help lower stress levels which raise blood pressure and can cause heart problems, just have to learn to make time for myself. 

Spiritual — to believe in a higher power and know that everything happens for a reason.  Learn how to pray, not for what you don’t have but to be thankful for everything that you do have.  Also learning how to commune with others and not feel self conscious or awkward; because you are your own worst enemy.  Knowing that not everyone is judging you for what you do, the color or your skin, or your gender.  More self-love, loving-kindness, and acceptance will help gain a higher spiritual presence. 

COMMITMENT:

            How will you assess your progress or lack of progress in the next six months?  What strategies can you use to assist in maintaining your long-term practices for health and wellness?  The way I will assess my progress or lack of progress is to come back to this periodically to see how things are going.  I will also keep a journal and record my efforts at becoming healthier physically, psychologically, and spiritually.  One of the strategies I can use to assist in maintaining my long-term practices are other people.  Letting people (friends and family) know about your journey and maybe coming along helps make things seem possible.  Have them set goals and keep each other from falling back into old habits, motivate each other to achieve and never let the other person down.

Loving Kindness & Visualization

This course has been very informative and I hope to be able to use the information well after the course is over.  The practices I really enjoyed were Loving Kindness and Visualization.  Loving Kindness I believe helps put your own problems into perspective; thinking of others and sending them love, prayer, and kindness who may be in a worse place than you are.  With visualization I like because you see how things can be if you apply yourself and strive for your goals. 

Even though it's been hard doing these practices because of time and family issues I think they do work and I will try them again to see if I can achieve a quality outcome.  Since studies show that individuals who meditate are healthier and happier I would like to at least try again to see if I can also get to that point.

Only a couple more weeks left in this course and I want to wish everyone happy blogging and good luck in your future endeavors.

Meeting Aesclepius

After trying to complete the Meeting Aesclepius practice I was not very pleased by the outcome, instead of feeling peaceful I needed to use the restroom and take some Tylenol.  Meditation that's dont correctly can enhance an individual's well being, both physical and psychological.  Unfortunately if done incorrectly it leads to nothing but headache and pain.

The saying: "One cannot lead another where one has not gone himself" goes to being able to lead by example.  You have to first practice what you preach to be able to help others, when you can guide them and ensure they understand what the ultimate goal is.  Health, happiness, and well being.

Loving Kindness/Integral Assessment

Describe the exercise and assessment process.  What did you discover about yourself?  What area have you chosen to be a focus of growth and development?  Why?  What are some specific exercises or activities that you can implement to foster greater wellness in this area?

The exercises are really hard for me to do, only because my son never lets me have much time to myself and it seems that as soon as I get started he needs something.  I've tried every exercise and have been interrupted after about 5 minutes.  I do believe that I need to learn how to take time out for myself and set a schedule and stick to it.  It always seems like I am trying to finish my work at the last minute because I'm always doing something for someone else.  In order to get the time I need for myself I have to teach my son how to be patient and wait for me to finish before he asks for something else, this will be a difficult endeavor but one that needs to be done. 

I'm always being told that you have to take care of yourself or you can't take care of anyone else; time to live by those words.

Loving kindness vs subtle mind

In comparison I think I was better able to achieve loving kindness and felt more like I was able to relax.  Subtle mind was harder for my mind to get to the point of being able to let go of everything.  This week I was driving from Virginia to Washington and had very little time that wasn't being spent on the road but I did try and do the practice.  Instead of focusing on my breathing my mind was always worried about the next day and how tired I was both mentally and physically. 

Spiritual, mental, and physical wellness go together and help you become a healthier person.  I have been trying to gain the mental wellness by keeping my mind busy by always doing games and reading books to keep my mind going.  As for physical wellness I try to keep active by exercising and doing a lot of cleaning.  My spiritual wellness is in need of attention; trying to find a way to access that higher power.  Always trying to achieve a better life by fine tuning my lifestyle.

Loving Kindness/Mental workout

Well the loving kindness exercise got me thinking about how what we give is what we get, now I will think before I send out negativity and expect to get something different back.  It was a little difficult to take the time needed to practice but I believe that once I can set aside at least 5 minutes to try again I will be able to make the most out of it.  I would recommend this to anyone who needs to get back to a place of loving not only themselves but everyone around them.
Mental workout is the ability to train your mind into being more productive and positive.  With this practice you can reduce negative emotions that cause anger, hatred, fear, worry, confusion, and doubt while increasing positive emotions such as patience, loving-kindness, openness, acceptance, and happiness (Dacher, 2006).  Try and make those negative thoughts into positive ones, learn from every situation and grow.  With less negativity in your life you can bring about positive changes because you get back what you put out.

Wellness

1.  Based on your reflections, and on a scale of 1 to 10 (ten being optimal well-being), where do you rate your A-physical well-being, B-spiritual well-being, C-psychological well-being?  Why?  I would rate my A-physical well-being at an 8, I have been trying to work out and eat a more well balanced diet but still need to do some work.  Eating well is hard sometimes but I try and still have a lot to learn.  As for my B-spiritual well-being I would rate that at about a 4, even though I am religious I have not been going to church regularly and often find myself looking for answers in the wrong area.  Then C-psychological well-being varies depending on the day but I would probably rate that around a 6.  Going through a lot of issues right now and until I can bring my spiritual well-being in line with my psychological well-being I believe I will always be about a 6.
2.  Develop a goal for yourself in each area.  Physical - continue to work out and eat a more balanced diet.  Spiritual - attend church and pray more.  Psychological - learn how to handle stress and prioritize my life.
3.  What activities or exercise can you implement in your life to assist in moving toward each goal?  Physical exercise can enhance both physical and psychological well-being by helping both the body and mind.  As for spiritual well-being I would do a type of meditation that lets your mind free all the worries and cares and give them to a hire power to deal with.
4.  Complete the relaxation exercise The Crime of the Century.  I did not find this exercise beneficial and had a few distractions that took my mind out of the relaxation mode.  Maybe the next one will hold my attention better and let me get to the point of relaxation.

Journey On relaxation exercise

The power of suggestion is amazing, during this exercise being able to listen to the voice and relax enough to move your blood to your arms and fingers and feel the difference is awesome.  It would be great to be able to take a few minutes during a stressful situation and relax your body to enable your mind to make those difficult decisions.  Meditation needs to be taught to everyone; some may not use it but given the information would enable those who find they could use it the opportunity to.   

Education

Started classes again on Wednesday 6 June 2012, looking forward to learning a lot in both of them.  Taking Public Health and Creating Wellness: Psychological and Spiritual Aspects of Healing.  Only another 3-4 courses until graduating with a BS in Health Science.