Introduction
For the health and wellness professional, it is of vital
importance to be a well-rounded person. This includes being healthy not only
physically, but also psychologically and spiritually. People look to these professionals
for guidance and to help get their lives on the right track. How can a wellness
professional follow through on this with a client if they cannot do it for
themselves? Because of this, the wellness professional should stay focused on
maintaining and improving their own levels of health in order to help other
achieve their goals.
In order to reach the goals that I have set for myself, I
feel I need to improve more in the area of psychological health. Despite being
spiritually and physically healthy, I feel that I allow stress to get to me and
at times control my level of psychological functioning. This is an area that
needs constant focus and attention in order for me to become better than what I
am now.
Assessment
In order to asses my levels of physical, spiritual, and
psychological health, I decided to look back to where I was three years ago.
From there I will be able to see how far I have come in some areas and areas
that I should improve in. In the physical category, I believe I have done very
well. In the last three years I have started exercising every day and changed
the things I put in my body. When I was younger I tended to treat my body as an
amusement park and as I have gotten older, I have seen the error in that way of
living. The results have been good to see and make me feel that with each day
that goes by, I only get healthier physically.
In the area of spiritual health, I still have much room
for improvement. In the last three years I have started practicing religion
again after straying from it for many years. The level of peace it has given me
has been astounding as well as the sense of spiritual purpose in my life.
However, with that being said, when it comes to this aspect, I feel like I can
always do more every day to improve. While I am nowhere near where I was three
years ago, I still am making strides every day to seek the highest level of
spiritual health.
Perhaps my biggest weakness out of all three forms of
health is my psychological health. As a child growing up I never let stress and
anxiety get to me and was usually quite happy. That changed when I deployed to
Ramadi, Iraq in 2005 as an Army infantryman. When I came back my threshold for
stress was low and with the next deployment it only got worse. After hitting a
breaking point in 2008, I decided to start getting help. While I have made
great strides in controlling my post-traumatic stress disorder, it still pops
up quite regularly and is hard to control. The anxiety at times makes it
difficult to do anything and the thoughts will keep me awake at night. However,
despite all this, I am still going forward and will continue to do so. I may
never be able to control every thought that occurs, but I will continue working
on how to handle it when it comes.
Goal Development
For my physical health, I have made goals for myself for
a few years. It may be to add a few pounds of extra muscle or add a few pounds
to a certain lift but regardless the goals are there. The goal that I have set
for this project is to go ahead and compete in my first bodybuilding
competition. The thing that has drawn me into natural bodybuilding is that it
is a quest for physical perfection, without putting chemicals in your body.
After all, what good is looking great physically if you are unhealthy on the
inside. With natural bodybuilding, the focus is more on physical perfection
while taking care of your body.
For my spiritual health, I would like to read my Bible
more. I read it on a pretty regular basis now, but I feel that more of my time
should be spent doing so. In order to make this goal a reality, I plan to start
dedicating a 30 minute window in the morning to sitting down and reading and
understanding the Bible. Taking this step will help me greatly improve my level
of spiritual health and keep me going on the right path.
In order to continue making gains for my psychological
health, I will continue focusing on the future and trying not to dwell on the
past. Every day I get better at this but there is still a lot of work to do. A
great goal for this area would be to eventually be able to sit down and watch a
documentary about the Iraq war. It may seem minor but since returning home, I
have had a hard time with this. In my eyes, it would not only be a small
victory, but may also offer some closure.
Practices for Personal Health
For my physical health, two things I would like to
implement would be doing more cardiovascular exercise, and tune up my diet a
little more. I exercise 5 days a week but it is mostly weight training. In
order to improve my overall health, I will need to put in time making my heart
stronger as well. Another way to improve my level of physical health is to tune
up my diet a bit more. Right now
I eat pretty healthy but I think it would benefit me greatly to take some carbohydrates
out of my diet. By doing these two things my level of physical health will only
improve.
For my spiritual health, I would like to improve by
finding a Bible study to become part of and read more books on spiritual and
religious guidance. In order to find a Bible study I will ask a few friends who
are part of them and see if it is possible to join them once a week for this. I
believe my spiritual health will improve by being able to be around others who
have good levels of spiritual health and to be able to learn from them.
In order to improve my level of psychological health, I
will implement the practice of guided meditation and will talk more and stop
bottling things up. The guided meditation will help me control my levels of
stress and help me learn to control my own mind. Talking to people about things
will help me unload some of the burdens that I currently have.
Commitment
In order to measure progress and also maintain my changes
for the long term, I plan to make a goal sheet with a checklist for each week.
At the end of each week, I can look at this sheet and decide whether I feel I
have accomplished each goal. At six months I will be able to look at where I am
then and where I was when I started and judge my progress. In order to maintain
this for the long term, I will simply keep doing it until it becomes a habit.
By making these changes part of my daily life, it is less likely to be
forgotten about or neglected and therefor will be accomplished.
Reference:
Dacher, E. S. (2006). Integral
Health: the Path to Human Flourishing
