UNIT 9

As life continues to get harder and harder people begin to look for ways to relieve the stress and diseases inflicted on us by our daily living. We have grown dependent on the outward world for not only happiness but also for healing as well. The definition of integral health according to Dr. Elliot Dacher is, “self-generated and self-cultivated, that leads to a comprehensive, holistic and far-reaching healing of body, mind and spirit and that is immune to life’s adversities, including disease aging and death.” (Dacher, 3). Every aspect of a person’s health is connected to the other. My physical, psychological and spiritual health all depend on each other to ensure total or holistic health for your body. Just as a person would work out their physical body so too do I need practice or make an effort to exercise my faith on a regular basis. I need to work on my psychological or stress management health as well. I need to develop a consistent physical workout regimen. I need to find a way to relieve my mental stress and anxiety possibly through yoga and meditation, once I work my way to this level of achievement. Last but not least I need to begin praying and worshiping God on a regular basis. “Stress that's left unchecked can contribute to health problems, such as high blood pressure, heart disease, obesity and diabetes.” (Mayo Clinic, 2013).

In order to assess my health in the three areas of interest; physical, psychological and spiritual I took tests that I found on the internet. For my physical fitness assessment I used the PAR-Q. The PAR-Q is the Physical Activity Readiness Questionnaire (Superiorathletic, 2014).  To take stock of my psychological health I took a mental health self-assessment test from the St. Louis Substance Abuse and Mental Health Information Center. For the spiritual self-assessment I used the George Washington School of Medicine and Health Sciences FICA test.

 The PAR-Q asks questions about my current physical health. Here is a link to see a PAR-Q (http://www.superiorathletic.com/PAR-Q1210.pdf).  For example it asks the if I had ever had a chest pain while working out, if I am currently taking blood pressure medicine, any joint pain or discomfort and if I have had chest pain while not taking part in physical activity. Then it goes on to ask if I have ever had heart surgery or diabetes, been pregnant or other major health issues. In the first part of the PAR-Q if I answered yes to any questions in the top part of the PAR-Q then I would need to automatically consult a physician before taking part in any physical activity. Unfortunately I have been experiencing chest pain off and on for a few months so I need to consult my physician before taking part in strenuous physical activity.

The second test I took was a self-assessment mental health test. Here is a link to the test that I took part in: http://samhi.mimh.edu/mh.asp). This test focuses on depression or sadness and the duration that you experience these feelings. The test asks if you allow your feelings to keep you from accomplishing things as well as you usually do them and it asks if you allowed your feelings to keep you from doing normal activities all together. After taking the test I did not show that I needed to seek professional help. The site did say however that if I felt that I did need help that I should seek help (SAMHI,2006).

The spiritual assessment test I used was a real eye opener. The test is called the FICA test and here is the link: http://smhs.gwu.edu/gwish/clinical/fica/self-assessment . This test is not supposed to tell you that you really need to get involved on not get involved in more church or spiritual activities. This test is supposed to help you think about your spiritual health and help you make changes as you see fit. The sad thing is I used to be able to answer yes to every question on this test. Now however I can only answer yes to the question that asks me if I have a spiritual belief. This is the area of my health that I feel needs the most work. This is the area that I have the most control over and it is the aspect that I neglect the most.

The goals that I have set for myself seem very easy to achieve but I have found that in today’s world making a commitment and sticking to it is now easy feat. This is why I am having to make goals to improve my comprehensive health. We continually have some excuse that keeps us from making ourselves a priority. So the physical health goal that I have set for myself is to take part in physical exercise five to six days a week for forty-five minutes to an hour with a heart rate range of 120 bpm to 160 bpm. The goal that I have set for myself regarding my psychological health is to take part in yoga at least once a week and set aside at least 30 minutes a day for me to have some me time. The spiritual health goal that I have set for myself is to read my Bible daily, pray daily and listen to worship music while I work out.

The question that I answered yes to on the PAR-Q was about experiencing chest pain while I am at rest. My doctor is aware of the issue and she has advised me to continue to work out only monitor my heart rate closely and try my best to stay within my target heart rate range. I also have extremely high cholesterol and a family history of heart disease. So I like to do all that I can to keep my heart health as optimal as possible. According to the American Heart Association a person with heart disease should take part in moderate aerobic exercise 30 minutes a day for 5 days a week to total 150 minutes weekly. If I want to work out at the top of my target heart rate range I can work out vigorously for 25 minutes three times a week for a total of 75 minutes.  In order to lower my cholesterol the American Heart Association recommends that I work out 40 minutes at a moderate to vigorous intensity 3-4 times a week. (AHA, 2013).  My target heart rate range, being a 34 year old person, according to the American Heart Association is between 93 and 157 beats per minute. My max heart rate is approximately 185 beats per minute.

The next goal that I am going to do my best to stick to is the practice yoga at least once a weak. Not only can yoga calm my mind and increase my flexibility but it can also have a positive effect on my heart issues as well. According to the Harvard School of Medicine says, “A small but promising body of research suggests that yoga's combination of stretching, gentle activity, breathing, and mindfulness may have special benefits for people with cardiovascular disease.” (Harvard Medical School, 2010). Yoga is a win win for me. I can work on calming my mind, breathing and controlling my emotions as well as becoming stronger and gaining other physical benefits all from yoga. Also as far as being able to meditate yoga can act as a stepping stone leading to gaining a clam mind, and a quiet mind that is necessary for meditation.

When I took the FICA test I was really shocked at how far away from God I have fallen. I have always been a happy person that can make the best out of a bad situation, turning the other cheek, and doing unto others as you would have them do unto you. However since I have moved away from home and the area that I was raised I have lost a lot of the teachings of the “Bible Belt” of the nation. Now there are all kinds of ways for me to exercise my faith just as I exercise my mind and body. I can do the old faithful and read my Bible daily. I will need to set a specific time to do this to ensure that I read. It is so easy not to read your Bible if you don’t make a specific time to carry out the task. I can even find pod casts of the sermons from my church back home to listen to now. One of my favorite things to do is listen to worship music while I run, ride my bike and lift my weights. While doing this I feel a calm and peace of mind just wash over me and I have some of my best workouts. I believe that this happens because I am not worrying about how hard I am going but rather I am lost in the music and the emotion of the song.

Other than being able to tell if you have put in the necessary work to see improvement there are several ways to assess my progress of the aspects of health. One way I can check for improvement is I can retake the self-assessments in three months. As juvenile as it may seem I can keep track by keeping a diary or chart of my actions as I take part in them. This way I can hold myself accountable as I go. I can also involve others in my journey. I can ask my mom, husband or friend to ask me daily how I am doing with staying on task.  

References

American Heart Association Recommendations for Physical Activity in Adults. (2013, March 22). American Heart Association Recommendations for Physical Activity in Adults. Retrieved July 15, 2014, from http://www.heart.org/HEARTORG/GettingHealthy/PhysicalActivity/FitnessBasics/American-Heart-Association-Recommendations-for-Physical-Activity-in-Adults_UCM_307976_Article.jsp

Dacher, E. S. (2006). Integral health: the path to human flourishing. Laguna Beach, CA: Basic Health Publications.

FICA for Self-Assessment. (n.d.). The School of Medicine & Health Sciences. Retrieved July 15, 2014, from http://smhs.gwu.edu/gwish/clinical/fica/self-assessment

. (n.d.). . Retrieved July 15, 2014, from http://www.superiorathletic.com/PAR-Q1210.pdf

Mental Health Self Assessment. (2006, January 4). Mental Health Self Assessment. Retrieved July 15, 2014, from http://samhi.mimh.edu/mh.asp

Stress management. (2013, July 19). Stress symptoms: Effects on your body and behavior. Retrieved July 15, 2014, from http://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-living/stress-management/in-depth/stress-symptoms/art-20050987

Yoga could be good for heart disease. (2010, November 1). . Retrieved July 15, 2014, from http://www.health.harvard.edu/newsletters/Harvard_Heart_Letter/2010/November/yoga-could-be-good-for-heart-disease 

The two exercises that I have found most beneficial from the completed exercises that we had to take part are the Integral Assessment and the visualization exercises. I think the reason that I enjoyed and could appreciate these two exercises so much is because I could really look into myself and draw on real things. I could use my experiences from the past to help me visualize a happy moment that I could use to help me recreate this moment of happiness. I liked this one because I learned how to be able to create happiness in times of sadness. This exercise is very useful and practical. The integral assessment I feel is necessary for us all to make progress in our integral health. I think we all need to be able to look inside ourselves to assess the things going on inside of ourselves in order to fix them. No matter who we are we all have the need to change or fix things inside of ourselves. The day you quit trying to better yourself your life is over.

I feel that both of these practices can be used to create happiness and balance in a person’s life. Being able to visualize yourself happy or calm or powerful in times of need is priceless.

Weekly or monthly I feel that it would be beneficial for me to look at myself and see how I feel inside. Check on my spiritual well being, emotional well being and just overall happiness. By doing this I will be able to keep my feelings in check and hopefully limit the feelings of anxiety, sadness, loneliness and anger. 

This week’s exercise was a challenging exercise for me. I struggled trying to find a person that I looked up to because I have had so many wonderful people in my life. I then focused on a woman that I used to play softball with as a young adult. She was always kind and patient with me even though I was a loud mouth. She was always accepting of me no matter what I did or didn’t do. She was the best person for me to focus my love and kindness mind on. I have yet to accomplish a still quiet mind while I meditate so when Dacher said to focus on the beams of light coming from the head and throat area I kind of lost it and never recovered fully. I did however enjoy looking for an inspirational person for this exercise. It made me realize how fortunate I really have been in my life.

“one cannot lead another where one has not gone himself,” is synonymous with the saying “practice what you preach.”  This saying was really taught to me by the woman that I focused on in my exercise this week. I was raised in a house full of boys and the house was always competitive. My inspiration taught me that life wasn’t always about winning or losing it was more about the experience itself. Once I figured this out My life changed forever. I went from being wound up and ready to go at all times to being able to enjoy the scenery of life just a little more.  Her living example of loving-kindness made a huge impact on my life. 

At the moment I am on a cross country trek with my family. With that being said I sat and faced a wall and plugged my earbuds in and tuned them out the best I could. I sat and tried to center myself and I focused on my biological, psychospiritual, interpersonal and worldly self. The part of my body that seems to be experiencing difficulty is my biological and psychospiritual self. I am at the moment experiencing troubles with my heart. The effects of this problem have started to weigh on my mind. I have been worrying about this problem constantly and worrying about the outcome just worrying. I know that I am not where I need to be in my psycospiritual life. Worry has started to dictate my days. I think the area that needs the most development at this time is the psychospiritual life. If I can look to something bigger to myself to give my problems to then I can find hope where I find worry and despair now. I would say that my development is in the rusty phase. By this I mean that I was once sharp and great at looking to a higher power for guidance and hope. Now however I am I guess too lazy to take time out to pray and read my Bible. I used to find such comfort in doing these things and now I can never find the time to do these things. I need to start setting aside time to read and pray again. It is just that simple. I feel that if I can find a center to my life if I can find my spiritual center. I feel that the physical and mental demands of the world will all go away or be kept in check by finding my spiritual center once again.

I can honestly say that I am a huge skeptic when it comes to the powers of meditation on a person’s life. I took part in the “Loving Kindness” exercise and I was very surprised at the effect that it had over the way I felt while taking part. I began to feel a lightness that I have now experienced in a long time. I do not think that I have felt this freedom and burden free since I was a child. I was able to forget all of the things that were weighing my heart and spirit down. I swear that I actually felt like I was experiencing a beer buzz but without the negative after effects. I think the reason that I do not put much stock into these types of exercises is because of the difficulty that I experience when I try to clear my mind and sit in the quietness. It is so hard for me to silence my mind and the outside world and my to do list for the day. I have massive problems sleeping nightly. I really do think that if I would take part in this type of relaxation, mind clearing exercise each night before I go to bed I would experience the kind of quiet needed to enjoy a worry free sleep. So yes I did find the exercise very beneficial. I suppose that I would recommend exercises similar to the one we took part in to others. You don’t have anything to lose by trying something new. It doesn’t cost you anything and there isn’t a great penalty that you have to pay if you are not successful in the endeavor. That is the beautiful thing about this there isn’t any competition to be won and lost. It is just you and your mind. Nobody is around to judge you or the outcome of the practice.

The main goals to me of the mental workouts is to help cultivate your mind into a fully functioning mind that is connected to your soul and your body. The workouts are designed to help you silence the world outside of your head and look inward to find solutions to your problems. This will help you be the source of your own happiness instead of having to rely on medications, food or other crutches that we may use to fill the empty parts inside each of us. When we do the exercises we are able to find happiness within in ourselves. We are able to accept things that we may not have been willing to accept before we began the exercises. We begin to be able to reduce the anger, doubt, confusion and depression that we once felt and replace them with feelings of love, peace and calm. We can literally transform the way we think and the way our minds work by completing exercises like the one we were assigned. I think that I would benefit most by taking part in mind clearing and soul calming exercises before I go to bed. Dacher suggests that we take part in the exercise at the beginning of the day to enhance the beginning of our day. I literally believe that I would probably have to shut myself off from the rest of my apartment in order to benefit fully from the exercises. I have the hardest time focusing on things that do not require movement.

I believe that if I had to rank my overall well-being I believe that I would rank my well-being around a 6. I do all that I can to make sure my physical well-being is maintained. I work out, eat a balanced diet, stay hydrated and take my vitamins. Where I fall short is the mental side of my well-being. I obsess over things that are beyond my control and hold on to feelings of anger and ill intentions for far too long. This keeps my mind busy at night and I have problems sleeping due to these feelings of stress and worry. I used to be really active in church and I used to read my Bible and pray regularly. Now, however I do not read my Bible frequently and I do not currently attend church.

My goal for my physical well-being is to incorporate more stretching or yoga into my weekly workout routine. My psychological goal is to sit in silence while doing nothing for 10 minutes a day. This may seem ridiculous but I have to start somewhere. I have to begin a road to meditation somewhere. Spiritual can be solved by setting aside 15 minutes daily for reading my Bible and prayer.

I will keep on eating well, working out and doing everything in my power to maintain my personal health as I always do. For my psychological health I need to learn to not sweat the little things. I need to let go of things that are beyond my control. I need to set aside time to allow myself to unwind and my mind to calm down before I go to bed. I need to find a way to sit quietly and let my mind calm to find peace of mind. Turn the TV off and find my peace of mind. Reading my Bible and praying can help not just with my spiritual well-being but also my psychological well-being. I believe that having faith in something bigger and more powerful than yourself is calming and reassuring. Knowing that if I get in over my head I have somebody or something else to turn to for guidance and strengthening when I am weak and weary. Knowing and acknowledging that I am not enough alone to make it through this life.

The exercise that we were asked to take part in was excruciating. I am not ready for meditation and definitely not ready for meditation that is led by an instructor yet. Every time he said something out of the blue I was focused on what he was saying instead of doing the things he was suggesting. I am not in meditation shape yet. 

Hey everybody,
My name is Joanie Dodd and I am a sports fanatic. To me there is nothing greater than the classic NCAA, NBA, MLB and NFL. The days where men were men not because of their sexual orientation but because they cared greatly about anything they attached their name to. I loved the days when kids were proud to play for schools and represent the organization as an ambassador to the fans. Instead of being more concerned with what they will be getting out of their time in school. No longer is it acceptable compensation to allow these kids to become educated and trained to be a professional. Gone are the days when it was allowed for NCAA coaches to see kids in need and reach out to help them as John Wooden did. Now we have coaches making more money than the presidents of the universities. You used to have such inspired performances not just by the NCAA kids but by the pros as well. Now it feels as if all the pros are more concerned with their annual income and sponsorship opportunities instead of being stewards for mankind. Sports heroes used to not be afraid to take a stand for the right thing regardless of the consequences. The Jackie Robertsons, John Woodens, Branch Rickeys and Don Haskins of the world are simply ghosts of the past. Hank Greenberg along with several other baseball greats volunteered their services in the Armed forces when it was necessary for them to be more than just a famous face. I love these days of sports and sports heroes. Oh I miss those days.

My reflective statement is one made by John Wooden, the molder of men, "Failing to prepare is preparing to fail."