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.