Health & Wellness

Health and wellness professionals are the go to people in the healthcare field in order for someone to better themselves psychologically, spiritually, and physically. Because of this reason they must be sound in all three areas. Without the experience or knowledge of the three disciplines that have no room to give advice out to the public. Why would the public listen to them if they had no expertise anyway? They wouldn’t, therefore health and wellness professionals must develop each area in order to help others. The area that I personally need to develop more is my spirituality. This discipline has always suffered a bit for me because I have never found the time to delve into my inner self or the world around me. I need to work on this because it is important to develop a sound spirit in order to create balance in all other areas of health and wellness.

As far as my health in physical and psychological I think I am doing fairly well. I exercise daily in the form of walking my dogs which also helps me psychologically. Walking helps me to clear my head and de-stress while also helping my overall physical appearance and internal wellbeing. My spirituality suffers a bit as I mentioned above. Spirituality is the concept of an ultimate or an alleged immaterial reality; an inner path enabling a person to discover the essence of his/her being; or the "deepest values and meanings by which people live.", including meditation, prayer and contemplation, are intended to develop an individual's inner life. Spiritual experiences can include being connected to a larger reality, yielding a more comprehensive self; joining with other individuals or the human community; with nature or the cosmos; or with the divine realm. Spirituality is often experienced as a source of inspiration or orientation in life. It can encompass belief in immaterial realities or experiences of the immanent or transcendent nature of the world (Eck, 2001). I need to learn how to connect with this other side of life and become more open minded.

Each area of discipline requires goals in order to be successful and continue to grow. One goal that I have set for my physical development is to work on my internal physiology. Although I walk my dogs every night I need to set aside time for learning about nutrition. I enjoy food and need to learn how to nourish my body in a better way. This will not only help my exterior views but will also make me feel better overall creating more complete health and wellness. Another goal that I have in the psychological arena is to practice yoga. This not only helps the physical side of things but also helps with the mental portion of wellbeing. It is also a mind exercise that forces you to free your spirit and concentrate on breathing. The potential health benefits of yoga are numerous and may include: stress reduction, increased fitness, management of chronic health conditions, weight loss. Yoga is the perfect way to escape from the stress of the day and regain balance with one’s self (Stress management, 2012). One goal that I have for myself in the spiritual arena is to try meditation. Meditation is considered a type of mind-body complementary medicine. Meditation produces a deep state of relaxation and a tranquil mind. During meditation, you focus your attention and eliminate the stream of jumbled thoughts that may be crowding your mind and causing stress. This process results in enhanced physical and emotional well-being.

In order to assess my progress in each area of development over the next six months I must begin to keep a journal. Having a journal is not only a way to relieve stress but it also keeps track of how you are doing in a certain area or activity. It shows progress and how committed you really are to a particular thing. This is a healthy long term activity that can health in all areas of develop in health and wellness.

References

Eck, D. L. (2001). A New Religious America. San Francisco, CA: Harper.
Stress management. (2012). Mayo Clinic. Retrieved September 19, 2012 from
            http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/yoga/CM00004.

Favorite Practices

My two favorite topics throughout this course have been loving kindness and meditation. I really enjoyed both because they opened up a new way of thinking and have really helped me calm down and not take the small things for granted. My favorite exercise for the loving kindness is as follows.

May all individuals gain freedom from suffering.

May all individuals find sustained health, happiness, and wholeness.
May I assist all individuals in gaining freedom from suffering.
May I assist all individuals in finding health, happiness, and wholeness.

I really enjoyed this exercise because the thought of first helping me gain freedom from all of my suffering and then finding health, happiness, and wholeness I think is incredibly important. You can only help others if you first help yourself. After you have gained peace within yourself you can begin helping others. I love the idea of helping others find health and happiness. I try and do this with my family now and it is very rewarding.

One of my favorite meditative practices is yoga. Yoga is considered a mind-body type of complementary and alternative medicine practice. Yoga brings together physical and mental disciplines to achieve peacefulness of body and mind, helping you relax and manage stress and anxiety.

The potential health benefits of yoga are numerous and may include:

• Stress reduction. With its quiet, precise movements, yoga draws your focus away from your busy, chaotic day and toward calm as you move your body through poses that require balance and concentration.


• Increased fitness. As you learn and refine new poses, you may enjoy improved balance, flexibility, range of motion and strength. And this means you're less likely to injure yourself in other physical endeavors or in your daily activities.


• Management of chronic health conditions. Yoga might help with a variety of health conditions, such as cancer, depression, pain, anxiety and insomnia, by helping with sleep problems, fatigue and mood. Yoga also can help reduce heart rate and blood pressure.


• Weight loss. If you're overweight or have binge-eating disorder, yoga may help you make the healthy lifestyle changes necessary to gain control of your eating and drop those extra pounds (Stress management, 2012).
• Yoga is the perfect way to escape from the stress of the day and regain balance with one’s self.

Reference

Stress management. (2012). Mayo Clinic. Retrieved September 19, 2012 from
http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/yoga/CM00004.

Hello Aesclepius

I really enjoyed the exercise this week because it of how it related the mind to things in nature. The narrator first explains how when we first begin our journey into spiritual health and wellness our mind is like a waterfall, loud and overwhelming. This is similar to how our minds act when there are constant thoughts running in and out it is difficult to sort through all the noise. As we learn to relax and meditate we can begin to lessen the noise and focus and certain thoughts and process them appropriately. Our mind slowly turns into a peaceful flowing river instead of a constant thundering waterfall. This process may take a while and needs consistent practice it is important for our overall health and wellness. I hope to learn how to do this in my own life. I constantly have thoughts and stresses running through my mind which cause me a lot of tension. I need to learn how to sit down relax and try to silence the noise. I hope to try and begin doing something like yoga in order to relieve some stress (when I finally find some spare time).

"One cannot lead another where one has not gone himself". This saying simply means that if you have not experienced a particular event than you have no way of explaining its affects for another person. This is an important concept in the health and wellness profession. For me I see this in my cardiology practice. Like I explained in a previous post we have a well-known (good at what he does) cardiologist who is extremely overweight. He is constantly preaching to patients that they need to lose weight by diet and exercise. He tells them that they are at risk for high cholesterol and possibly clogged arteries and eventually a heart attack. Can you really listen to someone who is probably twice the size that you are? How do you take them serious when they are obviously not serious about their own health and wellness? As someone in the health care field you must be able to lead by example.