Unit 9

1. 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?

The best way to lead is through example.  As a health and wellness professional, once you develop these aspects of your own life you can use them to help teach others and to educate them.  Healing is strongly centered within oneself.  To fully heal a person is not to cure their symptoms, it is to help with the underlying problems that caused the symptoms in the beginning (stress, mental health).  Personally, I feel I need to develop my spiritual aspects more to have a healthier understanding of whole health.

2. Assessment:
   How have you assessed your health in each domain? How do you score your wellness spiritually, physically, and psychologically?

Depending on what scale we are using I would say I’m healthy in all aspects: spiritual, physical, and psychological.  On an Excellent, Good, Fair, Moderate, and Poor scale I would be Excellent in psychological, Good in physical (because soda/caffeine/nicotine are my weaknesses), and Good in spiritual (I have recently started to develop this through meditation).  The realization that spirituality is not Christianity took a while to understand but I appreciate the difference between the two. 

3. Goal development:
   List at least one goal you have for yourself in each area, Physical, Psychological (mental health) and Spiritual.

Physical Goal- Strengthen my bones (Dr. Oz suggests hopping for 15 minutes each day to strengthen hip bones in prevention of osteoporosis.

Psychological Goal- Stop allowing my loving kindness to be victimized by people who aren’t willing to accept it.

Spiritual Goal- Work on developing patience and compassion for others.

4. 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.

Physical implementation-

1.      Sunscreen- The largest organ is skin and skin cancer is prevalent in my family.  I have switched to a moisturizer with sunscreen to help be proactive in my approach.

2.      Exercising- With spring here I have already started walking every evening after dinner.

Psychological implementation-

1.      Anger Management- Practice more understanding and stop expecting perfection from others.  Become a better teacher instead of being angered by mistakes.

2.      Be selfless- Selflessness in all your actions will help to realize that the result is not a reflection on yourself as long as you acted with a pure heart and good intentions.

Spiritual implementation-

1.      Develop patience- prayer and deep breathing exercises.

2.      Find inner peace- meditation exercises.

5. 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?

I’m not sure these factors can be measured by tangible means.  As long as my psychological and spiritual aspects are in the right place my physical health will show improvements.  I’m sure the physical can be measured by the amount of exercise and weight loss/cholesterol/blood pressure.  However, the spiritual and psychological aspects do not have diagnostic tools so easily accessible to the common person.  That’s why personally, I have issues with physicians diagnosing a mental health disorder based solely on a behavioral checklist instead of a diagnostic EEG or MRI that would show brain cell/wave abnormalities.  Strategies to maintain long term health and wellness would be to continue to practice the goals in place and remember you are the key to your own health.