Unit 9 Project

Hey everyone this is my project.

I.                   Introduction

I feel that it is important for health and wellness professionals to develop psychologically, spiritually, and physically because, it is good for their health. Another reason is that if a professional has developed or mastered these areas they are able to offer beneficial information to their patients. As we have said so many times in class a health professional cannot teach about something that themselves have no experience. Practice what you preach! We are less likely to listen to a heavy person telling us that we need to lose weight. Where with someone who is in shape and tells us that we need to lose weight; we are more likely to listen to them. (I only say might because some people get crabby when told they need to drop some weight. Bottom line is in all three of these aspects they are role models to their patients. Health and wellness professionals need to or should develop in all areas to better help their patients. I need to further develop in all areas. I have not done much to further myself in these areas. We move in a week in a half and once we are settled I plan on making it a major goal to make all of this a priority.

II.                Assessment

I would still rate myself a 7 for my psychological wellness. I feel that my mental health is pretty healthy. Sometimes on rare occasion feel that I am below a 7 but I think that is normal to have a rough day. Scoring myself spiritually tends to be harder to score. The reason being is because I do pray but not much, I believe in god, I believe that things happen for a reason. However going to church and talking with god everyday has never been big in my life. I feel that I have resentment towards some of my family who used to push their beliefs on me. They tried to force it on me which has left a negative effect. When I think of my spiritual health I think more about my psychological health. (My mental health.) Physically I would have to rate myself with a 3. Why? I have been eating so badly, I have not been doing any exercise of any kind. I have been lazy about it, always too tired, or to busy. I don’t make it important to take care of myself the way I should.

III.             Goal development

What are my goals? Well spiritually and psychologically is to make time 4 days a week if not every day to do yoga for at least 15 minutes a day. I feel I really need this time to refocus myself. I need something like yoga and/or meditation. It is my plan to use both of these methods. My deadline for this is three months. Once we get settled in our house I want to make it a point to meditate three times a week at least and yoga four times a week if not every day. Now for my physical goal is to do workouts that will help me to get back into shape. I do not want to be over-weight for the rest of my life. I have lost the weight before and I know I can do it; I just have to stick to it. I need to make myself a priority and give myself what I need.

IV.             Practices for Personal Health

What strategies I can implement is to make doing this important and a priority and realize I need to do this for myself. For my psychological and spiritual development the two exercises I need to do is yoga and meditation. I feel these two things will do wonders for my mental and spiritual health. As I said before I feel these two go together for me. I plan on using yoga as a way to start off my day. This will allow my mornings to start refreshed and stretched out. I want to use the meditation as night. I want this to be what gets me ready for bed. I feel that meditation will close down the busy roads of my head and allow me to relax and sleep better and feel better rested. I feel this will help me to be ready for the next day as well. The best way to implement is to just do these exercises and realize how much it will help me in the end.

V.                Commitment

I will track my progress by keeping a log. This log will be what I eat, drink and exercise. I will also use this log to keep track of what time and how long I do my yoga exercises and meditation exercises. If after two weeks, 1 month, 3 months and 6 months I will see how my progress is. After each interval period I will take a look back. If what I am doing is not working I will try to make changes and see if that works. When I start to see the results I want I am more inclined to keep up with it, especially when I am finally done with school.

References

Dacher, E.S. (2006). Integral Health: The Path to Human Health. Laguna Beach, CA: Basic Health Publications, Inc.

Schlitz, M., Amorok, T., Micozzi, M., S. (2005). Consciousness & Healing: Integral  Approaches to Mind-Body Medicine. Elsevier, Inc. St. Louis, Missouri.

Unit 8

Hi everyone. 
After thinking about the exercises that we have learned this term I have decided which two I like the most. I personally really like meditation alot. I want to make it a point to make time for this activity on a daily basis in my new house. An area where I can sit down and just relax and focus myself. I think I might even want to find some music that is like a waterfall. I find it to be very calming and relaxing. I think that I want this to be something I do at night before bed that way I always go to bed with an empty mind sorta. Of course my mind is not empty but for bed I can be completely calm and relaxed with nothing serious on my mind. I think the other one that I like was the one where it talked about the colors coming from certain parts of the body. Not sure which one that was I need to go back and save them. I liked that exercise because I thought it was amazing how well it actually worked. I am not fully sure how often I would do this to foster my mental fitness.

Jessica

(Sorry again I managed to delete my first post and had to redo it. I am not sure what I keep messing up with the blog that I keep deleteing them.)

Week 7

As I listened to the meeting Asclepius I found parts to be easy and others not so easy. TO be completely honest listening to the man talk is annoying for me when trying to relax. I found things easier when the women started talking. When asked to think of a wise person my first thought went to a man named Jeff Belyea.  This is a man I respect very much and have known since I was a kid, I known him for over 20 years. He used to be the preacher for a fellowship that my family and I went to. The wisdom this man has is unbelievable. Funny thing about this is when I saw him in my head I did not vision the man he is today but yet the man he was years ago (the looks anyways). Years ago he had long, long hair and the beard he has today. He is a spiritual man, and believes in mental health and has done seminars on motivation and goal achievement. Anyways I was able to vision him (what he looked like years ago) and I could right away feel an instant calmness. When doing this exercise my boyfriend was in the room he told me I had a smile on my face, this person does that. When I need some guidance I like to turn to him. About half way through I started to get lost, because I do not think I am developed enough in this area to go this far. This takes time and this is all new to me starting with this class. I think that if I continue with the activities that we have been introduced to in this class it will help foster greater health and wellness.

When reading the saying “one cannot lead another where one has not gone himself” I think of two things. The first thing that comes to mind is that you cannot judge someone else without first being in their shoes. It is always so easy for people to judge their peers without knowing the story behind them. We all are guilty of it at one time or another. The other thing that comes to mind is that we cannot teach to others something we have no experience in ourselves. I have no experience in meditation so I cannot sit here and try to give advice on how to do it. However I can explain what I have done and what has worked for me and that might be helpful to others. I am not sure how this applies to the health and wellness professional. To be honest I am not sure how to answer the rest of this question. I think to improve my psychological and spiritual growth in my life I need to spend more time with yoga, and meditation. I think that these two exercises will be the best for me.

Jessica

Unit 6

Hello,

  This week I sat down to do the universal loving-kindness exercise. At first it did not do much for me, I than set my self away from outside noise, and started the exercise over. I found that when I was repeating those 4 linees, my thoughts turned to those that I might know that are suffering. Was not anything to serious, pains from a knee surgery or a sore back. Then I found that my thoughts went to how I might be able to help. I thought this was a great exercise to think of others instead of just focusing on your self. The areas in which I have decided were areas that I needed the greatest possible growth and development is biological. I feel that my fitness and nutrtion are areas of my life that I really need to do something about. The last several months I have reslacked off and been burnt out. I need to sit down and come up with a plan that encourages me to eat healthier as well as eating smaller portions. I also need to determine when is the best time for me to do some exercise. This will help me to get myself in better shape. And I know I need to and I need to make the time for it. Like I have said before I want to start yoga when I move into our house. I will have the space to do this. I think that yoga will be good for my health for my body as well as my soul. It will be a great way to have some peace and quite.

Jessica

Unit 4

Hello again,

With this weeks audios it was hard for me to focus. I have been sick and was not able to focus the way that I would like. As I listened to the loving kindness I found that I focused my thoughts on my daughter. My daughter is my world, and I want to teach her so many things. I feel that loving-kindness expressed in the audio I show with my daughter every day. I can only hope that my daughter will also show it to others. The people in our lives won’t be here forever and we need to show that love and kindness to them every chance that we can. All of this makes me think that we need to treasure everything and everyone. I cannot help that anything having to do with love, makes me think of my daughter first and foremost.

When we had to think of someone suffering the person I thought of was a parent from my work. I work in a daycare and take care of infants. One of the children in my class, her mother has stage 4 breast cancer. In a few weeks she has to have surgery. When she was talking to us she was telling us that she had her breasts would be gone the next time we saw her... to say goodbye to the ladies and she laughed. She is sitting here trying to make the best out of a hard situation with a smile on her face. It broke my heart, she has two young children and you just do not know what will happen. Over the next few weeks my thoughts and prayers will be with the family.

The concept of “mental workout” is to work-out the mind or you can say exercising your mental state. Our minds need to be exercised just as our bodies do. Mental workouts can benefit us to be a better person, a loving-kindness person. Mental workouts help to relax oneself, and bring a person to a calmness. I am not sure how they can foster my psychological health. I do know that I need to do mental and physical workouts to help me be a better person and a healthier person. I want to set an example for my daughter.

Jessica

Dasher, E. M.D (2006) Integral health: the path to human flourishing, Laguna Beach, California

(P.S. Sorry post shows sunday and not on saturday. I accidentaly deleted the first one.)

Scale 1-10

Hello everyone,

My spiritual well-being I would have to say is a 1. I believe in god and pray to god but not all that often. I think part of your spiritual well-being is finding your inner zene and calmness. One of the exercises that I think I could do to help me is to take 10-15 mins a day where I sit by myself in silence and work on my breathing. Once I have done this I feel it can allow me to connect with god. My goal is to find the time to do that exercise.

My psychological well-being  and my physical well-being I would have to put together and I would have to say they are any where between a 3 and 7. The reason I say this is because the issue I have weighs on me psychologically and physically. I have put some weight on and I am unhappy about it. I know I need to do something about it but it is hard. I try not to make excuses but sometimes it is just hard. I work fulltime, go to school fulltime, and a mommy, house to take care of. I feel that I hardly have enough time to get the amount of sleep I need let alone workout to drop a good 60-70lbs. I know that it is not healthy for me to beat myself up for it, however I find that I di it anyways. I am not happy with my weight but I am having a hard time coming up with a solution that I can follow and keep up with it. The weight that I have put on has effected the way I think of myself and the way I look at myself. How do I change something that is hard to find the time? How do I give up those foods that taste so good but need to stop eating? How do I just suck it up and do it? By the time I get home from work I take the dogs out for a few mins, put stuff away, cook dinner, clean up dinner, give my daughter a bath, take dogs out again, put daughter to bed adn then time for hw. If I am lucky I will get about 5.5 hours of sleep to maybe 6.5 a night and I am still tired. How do I balance everything but make time for me and make me a healthier me? I know what my goal needs to be and that is to come up with a plan that I can follow. This would be a plan that will allow me to have time to workout but also help me to eat better. I am always trying to do this but I always fall off and mess up. As of right now to be honest I am not sure of the activities or exercise that will help with this goal. I am working on it and still have not gotten there. Open to ideas and suggestions.


I enjoyed the relaxation exercise. I think I need to start doing these earlier in the day because since I am tired it tends to relax me to the point of being really tired. I have been listening to them at night so I would not be bothered. As it is my boyfriend was trying to talk to me while I was listening to it. Anyways I find it amazing that I can sit here and listen and focus on it and feel so relaxed and kinda feel the weight of anything on my mind kinda just lift away even for just a few mins. I need to work on my indigo blue, my balance. I think that I need a little more balance with everything that I have on my plate. I need to find a little time for me and relaxing the mind and body to help my body find a balance. This audio really relaxed me and helped relax some muscles that tend to be tense. I think that this audio is beneficial because it was relaxing. I like things that help me relax. What I like about this audio and the one from last week is when I listen I put my feet up. My feet and ankles are sore and when I listen to these the tension lifts for the time being and I can really relax. I need more of these that I can keep on hand for when I need to relax. I might have to try and save the links or something.

Jessica

Welcome & Reflection

Welcome to everyone that has taken the time to read my blog. I am new to the whole blogging thing so I hope to learn as we go along. The name I came up with is what exactly I need to do, I need to find some inner peace and serenity. I always have so much going on, I can manage it all not as well as I would like but yet I still do. However I do not feel that I have any calming down time. I do not have peace, I need an exercise that will allow me to sit and calm and destress.

The audio of Journey on was very relaxing and calming for me. I want to try and have this audio to keep for the future because I feel that it can be useful in calming my mind and body. I found it interesting how when you really sit down and listen and relax you find that it works. As I was listening to the audio I found that I was trying to lift my arm as he instructed and my arms did not want to, they actaully wanted to rest and stay right there.

What would some of you recommend to help with meditating? Any acitivitys to help relax my mind and body, I seem to always do one or the other. I think that I need to focus more on this for myself to reach a better me. A better me leads to a better mother, better girlfriend, better employee just a better me all the way around. In a way I feel that I have been selfish to myself and have not been tending to what I need.

Thanks for joining me, and I look forward to your feedback.

Jess