In my unit three personal assessment I was asked to rate my psychological, spiritual, and physical well-being.  I rated my psychological well-being at a 9/10 and said that I was fairly sound, but unable to control my anger at times.  Now I am more self aware of my emotions and able to control them a lot easier by just taking time to understand what is angering me.  It is probably a 9.5/10 because I am still working on progression with this one.  Spiritual well-being was by far the lowest ranking area for me.  It was a 5/10 because I did not pray as much as I felt I needed to.  I had grown distant from a healthy spiritual level.  Now it is at least an 8/10 because I remind myself daily about praying and using prayer for stress reduction as well as a way to clear the mind.  Physically my well-being was a 8 or 9/10, but it is probably still the same.  Out of convenience, I haven't been eating as nutritionally sound as one should eat.  I choose options, that are not health, more often than I should.  I plan to get myself back on track by starting a grocery list to help me avoid unhealthy and convenience foods except for occasional.  I have quit buying soda and my kids have adapted very well to this change.  They drink lots of water and kool-aide on occasion as a treat.  I still let them drink soda when we eat out, which is not very often.

I have made progress in all of my goals except switching out healthy sweets for unhealthy ones.  I used to eat five small meals and have recently switched back to three meals a day with a few snacks.  Praying has become a daily regimen for me, reading my Bible has not become regular, but will definitely be easier when I don't have to read so many text books for school.  I barely have time to get those readings in before bed since I cannot stay up late and get up early.  My body requires at least eight hours of sleep each night for optimal performance.

I have implemented meditative practices into my life for improved well-being.  I have found that this works the best when I can lock myself in the bathroom.  My three children give me a reason to long for meditation.  This will only benefit them!

Before taking this course, I was unaware of the benefits of staying in control of our own mind and body.  I now understand that I can be more responsible for my health and control my physiological functions by using a mind-body approach.  When we have a clear head we can think better, become physically more productive, and spiritually in tune with the human experience.  The reward I have experienced is being able to relax.  The difficulty that I have experienced was trying to find peace and quiet in a house with three very active children.  This experience will help me to help others by teaching them practices I have learned to reduce my stress levels so that they too can self heal.

Tracy

Unit 9 Project on Psychological, Spiritual, and Physical Health

Integral Health Approach

Part I

It is important that health and wellness professionals understand the importance of integral health and healing to be able to teach others.  In order to teach others, a professional must have developed psychologically, spiritually, and physically.  Since one cannot see the spiritual and the psychological aspects of healing, there must be an understanding or a self-awareness of these areas.  The physical aspect can be seen by what someone looks like, but may have a different level of health inside, depending on how the person copes with stress, what the person eats, and whether or not they exercise.  In order to improve this author’s levels, psychologically, spiritually, and physically, a personal assessment must be done to evaluate areas that are deficient.  This author has a good physical state of health at the current moment, so there is a great need to modify and or improve her psychological and spiritual areas the most.

Part II

This author has rated her psychological development at a three star on a five star scale rating system.  She lacks self-control when angered at times and is unable to alter her mood at times when grumpy.  Stress is her enemy and she does not cope well with a lot of it.  This author rates her spiritual health at a four star on a five star rating system, because she has a sense of awareness that there is a higher being to go to with her problems, God.  This is a way to feel a sense of oneness with ourselves, through prayer and meditation.  This author doesn’t read scripture enough to broaden her knowledge base for spiritual growth and development.  This author believes everything happens for a reason, which helps to reduce her anxiety and fear accompanied with change or the unknown circumstances that face her.  Physically this author rates her physical level of health at a five star on a five star rating system, because she has made the necessary changes necessary to maintain a healthy weight and BMI.  Her vitals are all normal and she has had a stress test recently that demonstrates she has a healthy heart.  The only fault that this author has is her dietary habits.  She likes sweets a little too much. 

Part II

Psychologically- a goal for this author would be to think about the necessary worries and the worries that cannot be changed, before letting them get to her psychologically.  This will help her to cope with them on a more reasonable level with intention.  When we understand our feelings we tend to practice this much better. 

Spiritually- a goal for this author would be to read the Bible every morning at least ten minutes for six out of seven days each week to grow in knowledge and spirit. 

Physically- a goal for this author would be to challenge her daily dietary habits, by reducing the allowance of sweets to two days a week and replace the temptations on the other five days with a fruit or vegetable.

Part IV

To be able to meet the psychological goal, this author will use relaxation techniques, such as, deep breathing, to calm down and become more reasonable when agitated.  Another way to become less agitated would be to learn to count to ten before responding to a frustrating situation.  To meet the spiritual goal set forth for this author, she can use guided visual imagery, to improve her self-awareness and emotions.  The second activity that will help this author meet her spiritual goal would be using the loving-kindness approach of visualizing a loved one that has been a wise person from her past and reminiscing on the loved one’s role to her to develop an increased sense of compassion and love towards others.  Physical activities that can be performed to help this author reach her healthier nutritional status are to choose healthy alternatives to sweets, such as, an apple or a pear, instead of cake or doughnuts.  Another thing that this author could do to improve her physical health through nutrition is to make a grocery list minimizing items that are unhealthy and packing meals ahead of time to limit desire to use vending machines or to reach for other unhealthy items out of convenience. 

Psychological activities, such as, deep breathing and counting can be done anywhere and anytime when this author becomes agitated to help in calming her emotional state.  This author plans to keep a note or reminder in view at work for quick reference to remember to perform these practices, until they become learned practices.

Spiritual activities including; guided visual imagery, and reminiscing of a wise loved one to become more compassionate and loving, can be practiced every morning or evening on a daily basis. 

Physically, the practices set forth for this author will have to be by means of planning ahead and through the use of self-discipline.  This author plans to reward herself for staying on track with the goals established regarding her dietary habits.  The reward will not be a food item, rather a piece of exercise equipment or clothing, to stay on track.

Part V

In order to assess this author’s progress she will keep a tracking sheet and a writing journal on her emotions for every day of the week.  The tracking form will list psychological, spiritual, and physical areas with the goals listed under each one of them with a tab for each day of the week to mark if she stayed on track or not.  The writing journal will be utilized to jot down emotions throughout the day to see what activities affected each area, psychological, spiritual, and physical, to alter lifestyle so that those activities can be reduced, avoided, or eliminated from her schedule and life.  This way both tools can be used to enhance psychological, spiritual, and physical health and wellness and allow her to continually evaluate and modify her goals as necessary to sustain optimal health and wellness as a health and wellness role model for her clients.

Tracy