Reassessment

In Unit 3, I gave myself 7s in all three categories. I have a general sense of health and well being that permeates my physical, psychological and spiritual lives. There is definite room for improvement but, over the course of the last 6 weeks, I have not taken the time to implement any of the ideas/methods that I listed in that blog. However, there is one area that I have seen slight improvement in and this is in the area of exercise. I have gotten in several hour long runs and have been taking long walks with my parents a couple of times each week. So, maybe, I'm at a 7.5 now. =)

I don't believe that I have developed an improved well-being during this class because I have not taken the time to pursue any of these activities outside of class. I take full responsibility for this. I know I am a procrastinator and often times choose to just veg out instead of taking some time to pursue other, more important, things. I keep telling myself that I will do better next unit but then I find myself in the same boat week after week. If I could change one thing about myself, it would be to eliminate all procrastination and be ahead of schedule for once.

I found all of the relaxation techniques to be incredibly difficult. Mostly because I had procrastinated and they took too much time. I feel that it is safe to admit this now because the grades are pretty much all posted and I did, in fact, put in a fair amount of effort into this class, the reading, and all of the assignments. I learned a lot that I can pass on to those around me in both a personal and professional setting. I hope that I am able to point people in the right direction of taking back their thoughts and actions.

Good luck everyone in your future pursuits!

Final Project

Introduction

                It is important for health and wellness professionals to develop psychologically, spiritually, and physically because they set the stage for these methods to trickle down like a waterfall.  If those who take on the role of “healer” are psychologically, spiritually, and physically sound, they are then able to pass down this overall health to their patients who are then able to pass it on to their friends, family, and acquaintances.  This is essentially a domino effect and the end result, ideally, would be, not just national, but global health. Again, ideally, one who is healthy in all three dimensions –psychologically, physically, and spiritually- would be at peace and would act out in Loving-Kindness to all and we would finally be able to achieve world peace.  Honestly, I feel that I need to spend some time developing all three of these areas in order to achieve my personal goals.  Psychologically, it would be beneficial for me to spend some time training my brain to focus more efficiently and not be so easily distracted.  Spiritually, I need to spend more time reading and studying my Bible and in prayer.  Physically, I need to find ways to be more active.  I believe that with the development of any of these three areas, the other two will reap some of the benefits, as well.  For me, I believe that the most important of these three would be the spiritual aspect and yet it is the one that feels like it is the most neglected.

Assessment

            I have assessed my health in each domain and I believe them to all be middle of the road scores.  Psychologically I feel very sound, very even keeled.  However, I am very easily distracted and find myself getting a little stressed out due to procrastination.  Spiritually, I know what I believe, why I believe it, and where I will go when I die.  On the flip side, I know that I am capable of so much more than I am currently offering God and He deserves nothing but the best of me.  Physically, I am less fit than I normally am but am coming around the other side of a foot injury.  I have used this as a crutch and an excuse to not be as active or eat as healthy as I should and I have noticed the effects in my energy level and in the addition of a couple extra pounds.  Overall I would give myself a 5.  I am not at the bottom but I have a ton of room for improvement.  I like being challenged and that is how I can look at this goal of improvement.

Goal Development

            List at least one personal goal for each area; physical, psychological (mental health), and spiritual.

a.       Physical- My goal is to be able to run the Denver Rock N Roll marathon in October of 2012.  I have previously run a marathon so I am aware of the time commitment. The point of this goal is to celebrate the restoration of healing to both of my feet.

b.      Psychological- I would like to master the calm-abiding mind exercises that we practiced in this class.  I think the benefits of learning how to control your thoughts are endless and can have significant impacts on every aspect of your life.

c.       Spiritual- My spiritual goal would be to join a Bible study group as well as to spend time in a personal study.  I believe it is imperative that you develop good relationships with those who share your faith and can support you when you stumble.

Practices for Personal Health

                What practices can I implement to foster growth in each of the following domains; Physical, Psychological, and Spiritual.

1.      Physical

a.       Physical fitness is an area that I have previously excelled in and would like to excel at once again. I would like to commit to exercise for a minimum of 60 minutes, 3 times per week and eventually up this to a minimum of 90 minutes, 4-5 times per week in order to achieve my goal of running the Denver Rock N Roll marathon in October of 2012.

b.      Healthy eating is an area that I have struggled with because I have always been relatively thin and exercised rigorously on a regular basis. Thus I was able to justify poorer eating habits. My current goal and focus is to incorporate more fruits and vegetables into my diet and vastly decrease my sugar intake. I have already started this by replacing desert items with fresh cherries and strawberries. Also, I travel a lot for work and the per diem is not enough to eat very well. I have tried to eat Subway, loaded up with fresh veggies, for at least one meal per day and only drink water and unsweetened teas to help reduce calorie, fat, and sugar intake.

2.      Psychological

a.       I believe that the main strategy I can implement in this area would be to put up reminders in the form of sticky notes or daily reminder memos stored in my phone. I tend to forget the relaxation techniques in the heat of a stressful moment or day. If there were reminders on my desk, refrigerator, and bathroom mirrors, I would be more likely to implement the methods I have been taught to bring my thoughts back under control and to focus on the most pressing issues first.

b.      Another strategy that I think would be very helpful would be to take 10-15 minutes at various points of my day (after breakfast, after lunch, before bed) to indulge in a relaxation or mind-body awareness technique. Since I work from home 3 days a week, I think this would be an attainable goal to achieve. Hopefully, I would be able to make this a habit relatively quickly.

3.      Spiritual

a.       I think that joining a weekly or bi-weekly Bible study that is for girls only would be highly beneficial to my spiritual growth. By being all girls, I could develop friendships along with developing my spiritual life and I feel that I would be more likely to continue attending because of the growth in these areas.

b.      I am already committed to attending church services each week but I would like to step it up in my personal life, as well. I have found a series of personal Bible studies that I really enjoy and have learned a lot. In order to maintain a constant state of development and closeness with God I need to spend regular and quality time in my pursuit of knowledge of Him. Spending time each morning before I start work would help me to begin my day on the right foot and headed in the right direction.

Commitment

How will I assess my 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?

1.      For my job I rely heavily on day planners and reminders that are set in my phone. I believe that implementing weekly, monthly, and quarterly assessment reminders could help re-direct me if I have fallen off track or encourage me in my successes.

2.      I can also use this final project as a way to check in with myself and see where I have succeeded in my goals and which areas still need some development.  While this is not something that I will be graded on or judged on by others, they are all necessary changes and I need to be held accountable, even if it is just to me.

3.      Another way would be to revert back to my childhood chore days where my mom created a big white board that had all of my daily and weekly tasks listed. My sister and I were given check marks once we had completed each day’s chores. I forget what we were given if we accomplished everything with a good attitude but I know that keeping track of our progress each week in a visible way certainly kept us motivated. Perhaps it was just sisterly competition but neither of us wanted to “lose”. In a similar manner, I could create a spreadsheet that listed each of my goals in each of the three areas – physical, psychological, and spiritual - and I could check off each day or week where I followed through on each of them.

Ultimately, my level of success falls directly on my own shoulders. I have to recognize the value of each area and make the decision to follow through on each set of goals and strategies. We all do.  As much as I would love to say that I will be 100% successful in every area I’ve laid out here, I believe that any success in any area will still be a success and will have a direct impact on the other goals and strategies.

Two Practices

For me, I believe that the Loving-Kindness and meditation exercises will be the most beneficial. I think it is so important to be able to reach out in any way possible to those around us who might be hurting or who just needs a compassionate person to listen and give them a hug. I find this very easy to do with those I love and very difficult for those who don't seem to exercise any common sense. This has allowed me to be very judgemental and that is not a side of myself that I like very much. As far as meditation goes, I don't plan on using it in necessarily the way we have been shown throughout this class. The Bible tells us to meditate on the Word of God -the Bible- and this is what I intend to do. I find that this helps relieve stress and allows me to entrust God more easily and willingly.

For the Loving-Kindness part, I think the first step in implementing it is being aware. I have my sister who helps me by calling me out when I am being judgemental and I can also give myself reminders in the form of sticky notes on mirrors and my desk. Hopefully a heightened sense of awareness will help me re-train my brain to show love more easily.

For meditation, I can spend a set amount of time each day in Bible study or reading. Preferably this would be at the beginning of my day so that I can start out on the right foot. I feel that these two exercises walk hand in hand and can greatly help eachother and me on the path to success.

"Meeting Asciepius"

I am a very spiritual person and definitely believe in spiritual beings and encounters. However, I do not believe that we have contact with our deceased relatives/friends. I do not believe that they can speak to us, send us messages or protect us from anything. Honestly, I did not complete this exercise because it goes against my spiritual beliefs in so many ways. I am all for relaxation techniques and meditating on the Word of God (the Bible) but I believe there is a fine line between training your mind and opening it up to ungodly influences. My apologies, Professor, but I could not completely participate in this week's exercise.

The saying: "One cannot lead another where one has not gone himself” seems to me pretty self explanatory. If you have not had an experience, how are you supposed to help someone else through and out of it? As a thin person, I've never had to lose more than a few vanity pounds. I am probably not the easiest person a larger person could come to and ask for help in losing their excess. I think I definitely have an obligation as a healthcare professional to be physically, spiritually and psychologically healthy. These three walk hand in hand and it is important to recognize their individual, as well as combined, effect on your overall well being. By staying physically and spiritually active, the psychological part, at least for me, should be well taken care of. When one is unbalanced, the other two will suffer, as well.

Integral Assessment

The Universal Loving Kindness exercise had me repeat several sentences for 10 minutes. I found this long, tedious, and it did not hold my attention well at all.

The Integral Assessment had me take a look at the four aspects of my life- psychospiritual, biological, interpersonal, or worldly- and determine which area is the least developed and how can I improve upon this area.

I discovered that I do not enjoy the tediousness of the first exercise and that the psychospiritual aspect of my life is the least focused on. As a Christian, I have a hard time with this one and so I have decided to just refer to it as my spiritual side. I spend a lot of time on the other three but have neglected my spiritual life a lot lately. Some ways I can improve is to spend time daily, even if it's only 10-15 minutes, reading my Bible and praying. Once this becomes a daily habit, it should become easier to spend even more time on it.

Calm Abiding

During the Loving Kindness exercise, I found myself thinking a lot about who might be suffering and in what ways. This, to me, was not relaxing or something that I could easily focus on. I am a very compassionate person and am frequently having conversations with friends who are going through a rough time. I feel that staying in contact, both on the phone and in person, is a much more beneficial way for me to be of help to them. However, the Calm Abiding exercise was actually very relaxing while being very difficult to maintain. Honestly I just think that my life has so much going on right now that I am not able to fully appreciate these exercises. I know we are all busy but I travel for my job, my best friend just got married and I’m trying to keep up on my classes. I’m not doing a very good job right now but hope to do better very soon!

I believe that if you are spiritually healthy, this will have a huge impact on your mental health. Knowing what you believe and why you believe it gives you a peace that you may not be able to explain to those who don’t. Ideally I believe that if you are spiritually and mentally healthy then you should also be physically healthy. However, this is not something that I’ve witnessed to be accurate all the time. I know many people who are spiritual rocks and have a great outlook on life but struggle with their weight or other health issues. It would seem that maintaining all three would be a challenge too great for a lot of wonderful people.

Mental Workouts

The concept of a mental workout is much the same as a physical workout. The more effort and time you put into it, the greater the results. Like an athlete who is training for an event, they must work towards that goal every single day until the event. Exercising the brain is the same. We must continue to push ourselves to remember, to calculate and to control our thoughts and actions. This is a daily practice that gets easier with time and can have significant events. For example, those who only expect negative results are only going to receive negative results and will completely miss anything positive. But those who are expecting to succeed will even see the successes in the failure. Research has indicated that those who give themselves daily mental workouts tend to be healthier, happier and live longer. On top of that, they tend to attract others who think like they do, or at least want to, and this contributes to their mental well being. Surround yourself with positive thoughts and people and you aren't able to stay negative for too long! For me, I think a mental workout involving taking a few minutes each day to sort through things I perceive to be problems and then work through how best to handle them would help me to stay focused, not panic about upcoming deadlines, and just overall accomplish more. This would greatly help my mental well being and would help me to take control of the random thoughts that are constantly flying through my head.

Loving Kindness Excercise

For this exercise I found it difficult to stay focused because the ocean waves in the background kept making me very sleepy. I also struggled at the part where I was to visualize a loved one who was suffering. To my knowledge, those I love are not suffering in a tangible way. Everyone has their struggles but aren't necessarily struggling. I spent too much time thinking about people I know and love on this part and ended up missing some things. I can definitely see the benefit of choosing to love other people. Love is what makes us survive and keep going. I would recommend this exercise to those who are looking to find that side of themselves and are wanting to change. However, God is love and it is only through Him that we can truly love those who are unlovable, those we do not like and/or have done us wrong. Because of my belief in God and faith, I have a hard time with a lot of these visualization, DYI techniques that try to work around the works He does in us and thus put all the weight on our shoulders to "fix" ourselves. But I do try to find a balance in moving in the right direction and taking total credit for who we become.

Well-Being

I've never really given much thought to rating my personal well-being, outside of the obvious feelings of stress or general sense of health. If I had to rate my level of physical well-being, I would say that it's at a 6 or a 7. I like to be active and everyone feels better when they are eating healthy. I'm just not as consistent as I would like to be with either. I can improve this rating by running 3-4 days/week and buying more fruits and vegetables to snack on, rather than delicious Cheez-Its. ;) Psychologically I would say I'm at a 7. I am pretty content with my life and don't feel overly stressed right now. However, I know that I could improve my state of mind by staying more focused and not procrastinating. This creates stress in my job and with my schoolwork when I fall behind. Spiritually, I guess I would have to say, again, that I'm at a 7. I know exactly what I believe and why I believe it. I know that I am going to Heaven when I die, so I am not afraid of that (as long as it doesn't hurt too much). I take comfort in the knowledge that God is in control no matter how bad things get and that He hasn't forgotten where I am. My life is not just going wherever the wind blows, He has a purpose for it. The one area I would set out to improve upon is my time spent reading my Bible and in prayer. Because without time spent, you cannot have a solid relationship with anyone, God included.

In regards to the relaxation recording, The Crime of the Century, I'll be honest in saying that I had a hard time focusing on all of the colors for the entire time. However, I do enjoy the calming effects that it had on me. I wouldn't say that I felt grounded, safe, or more self confident, but I was able to completely relax to the point of dozing off. And I have to echo several of my classmates and ask why it was called 'The Crime of the Century'?

Welcome!

Hello! My name is Heather and I am a Health and Wellness major. God willing, I will graduate in December. As much as I love learning, I am ready for a break from classes. I'm not really sure what I want to do with my degree. I just know that I love this area and I want to finally have my degree!

In regards to the relaxation exercise for this unit, it just about put me to sleep. I'd like to play this every night before I go to sleep. Does anyone else have night owl syndrome? I think it may be a disease and this just might be the cure. I'm not sure I was actually able to move the blood to specific areas of my body but it was cool to focus on something like this for a while instead of everything else going on in my life. What was your experience like?