Introduction
Health is the physical, mental, social and spiritual well-being. Growing up a number of members from my family were diagnosed with blood pressure and diabetes. Being the eldest in the family, I have always had the responsibility of taking care of others. Therefore, I would acompany my aunt in most of her doctor’s appointments and would listen keenly as the doctors advised her how to live a healthy lifestyle. Therefore, my family became a great influence to my personal health. To this day, I have devoted to take my personal health with utmost responsibility. The health of a person is usually is in the dimensions of physical, emotional, spiritual and social health.
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Since the beginning of this year, I have taken my personal healthcare seriously. This health assessment shall involve all the dimensions of health mentioned above. An example of physical healthcare is exercises will be walking, swimming and aerobic exercises. Benefits of physical health are body weight management, psychological benefits and achievement of mental fitness. There is also reduced risk in heart diseases that are usually as a result of fat deposits in blood vessels, others are reduced risks of diabetes. Apart from physical health, there is social health, which is achieved by building strong family and friend ties. Social healthcare is based on the social relationships. It involves being friendly, a good listener and improving my communication skills. Another dimension I will look at is improving my spiritual healthcare, here I will pray more often seeking guidance from God in every situation in my life. Human spiritual healthcare helps develop the health of the body, mind and spirit (Srivastava, 2014). The last dimension sis my emotional health, which is related to mental health. The primary strategy in maintaining emotional health is to ensure that is eradicate and avoid any stress in my life. This paper outlines my personal health assessment and strategies to improving all the four dimensions of my health.
Physical Healthcare
As mentioned earlier, this kind of health is attained from regular physical exercises. The exercises I intent to engage in are swimming, jogging and kickboxing. With regular exercises, I will be able to avoid chronic illness like high blood pressure and diabetes. Physical activities are important to prevent diabetes and other chronic diseases. Through exercises, I will manage my body weight. Aerobics and cardiovascular exercises reduce the risk of heart diseases by minimizing the fat deposits in the blood vessels. Vitamin and mineral supplements are good additional to physical fitness. Together with regular exercises, consumption of substances that may affect the well-being of an individual must be reduced. For example, avoiding drugs such as tobacco and alcohol is not only harmful to the smoker but to those around them. With this in mind, to maintain my physical health, other deterrence of good health are alcohol and smoking. I will reduce my alcohol intake until I am able to quit, additionally I will quit cigarette smoking. Taking an insurance policy is another step to ensuring that I am fully covered incase of any medical emergencies.
Emotional or Mental and Spiritual Health Assessment
Being emotionally healthy means having a stress free mind and life. One would argue that it is not possible to have mental exercise. However, in my research I have realized there is a wide range of mental exercise. Some of them are word puzzles, playing chess, mental calculations and learning a new concept every day. Inclusion and proper understanding of the stress management techniques is important. When one is stressed, it means that they are unhealthy emotionally, emotional unhealthiness results to skin breakout, loss of body weight and hair loss. Emotional unhealthiness also affects spiritual health. I will manage my stressful encounters by relaxing. I intent to relax more often to reduce my level of anxiety and lower my blood pressure (Jacobs, 2001).
Emotional health can also be managed by accepting things the way they are or things we cannot change. In a way we avoid having high levels of expectation hence no disappointment way is proper and enough sleep, it is said a human being should have 6-8 hours of sleep. Since emotional health is directly related to spiritual health, I will pay more attention to my spiritual health. Meditation and yoga are excellent strategies of managing physical, spiritual and emotional health.
Social Health
Social health is intricately intertwined to physical and emotional wellness. For example, if one has healthy work and family relationships, then it will result in their positive general well-being. Equally, abusive relationships will result to increased diseases. When one is healthy socially, it means they leave in harmony with others. One is also able to learn new social skills and have a good support system from friends and family. Social healthiness entails having a great connection with those around us, for example, family, friends and even strangers.
One way of improving social health is by having good communication skills. Additionally, it is drawn from the way we relate to others. Communication helps us express how we feel about others. When we do not communicate, we tend to let in all the stresses of life, hence overwhelming our emotional health. For a while now I have been trying to improve with the way I communicate with my husband. In case we have a disagreement, we have both agreed that the matter will be solved before we sleep. In this way we avoid postponing problems hence reducing stress.
Friends are important parts of our lives, they help us grow and rediscover ourselves. Most of the time my friends have complained that I do not listen to them. I intent to develop my active listening skills by not being judgmental. With the advent of technology face-to-face conversations with my friends has reduced. I realized that when you talk to someone and see his or her face it creates more impact that texting. For this reason I intent to meet with my friends at least once a week to have a more fulfilling conversations (Umberson & Montez Karas, 2010).
Unhealthy social relationships are also as result of not recognizing limits. When boundaries are crossed, it results to unhealthy relationships. I intend to treat people gently, recognizing that they are human and bound to make mistakes. Mutual respect is another important aspect in recognizing our limits in relationships. For example, in arguments I intent to refrain from personal attacks by sticking to the topic. Setting up of realistic goals in a relationship is important, when our relationship goals are easy to achieve there is little stress. Trust is an important aspect in all kinds of relationships. Trust is earned and not demanded or expected. If the relationship is characterized by unfair balance, disrespect and dishonesty then the relationship is socially unhealthy.
Conclusion
Physical, emotional, spiritual and social health are all intricately intertwined. Regular exercises, balanced meals, using vitamin, and mineral supplements. Through exercise, we are able to control our body weight and prevent chronic diseases. Spiritual healthiness is putting God first. Having a clear mind and no stress in life leads to emotional healthness. Through stress management skills, one will be emotionally healthy. Additionally, mental games such as learning a new concept every day, playing puzzles and Chess is a good way of exercising the mind. Good communication skills and being a good listener are essential elements of social health. Active listening involves not judging others and putting ourselves in the shoes of others. Social health is also achieved by having trust in a relationship. Relationships that lack trust are strenuous to both the body and mind. I will analyze all my relationship to determine if they are abusive and dysfunctional. Unhealthy relationships with both a stranger and family have a negative effect on our emotional health. To achieve my personal health, I intent to create a balance of social, emotional, spiritual and physical health.
Bibliography
Jacobs, D. ( 2001). The Physiology of Mind–Body Interactions: The Stress Response and the Relaxation Response. Journal of Alternative and Complimentary Medicine, 7(1), 83-92. Srivastava, P. S.(2014). Human Being and Spiritual Education.International Journal of Multidisciplinary Approach and Studies, Volume 01, No. 6.
Umberson, D & Montez Karas, J (2010). Social Relationships and Health: A Flashpoint for Health Policy. Journal of Health and Social Behavior November 2010 vol. 51 no. 1 suppl S54-S66
Varvogli1, L., & Darviri1,C.(2011). Stress Management Techniques: evidence-based procedures that reduce stress and promote health. Health Science Journal, Volume 5 Issue 2.
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