Unit 9: Final Project

Introduction

To best assist their patients, health and wellness professionals should be actively engaged in cultivating themselves psychologically, spiritually, and physically. At the very least it sets the right example when a practitioner demonstrates the proper care and attention that the patient should be applying. As a patient it’s hard to ‘buy into’ a prescription for appropriate care if the person prescribing it doesn’t think it’s valuable enough to do for herself. Beyond setting the right example, it creates an ideal environment for the healthcare professional. I imagine that trying to assist so many people every day is draining. In order for a practitioner to stay alert, focused, engaged, and relaxed, taking care of themselves integrally is critical. Once the wellness professional loses their connection to the patient, or suffers the effects of chronic stress, or physical illness, it becomes more difficult to devote the necessary attention to the person who needs it: the patient.

Through the lessons in this course, it’s become clear to me that the aspect in which I hold the greatest deficit is spiritual. Although I still have plenty of work to do in all other areas, I made a conscious decision a couple of years ago to dedicate myself to physical and psychological development; however, spirituality has been a complete unknown for me. To develop the kind of balance and whole-person wellness that I desire, I have to cultivate a spiritual life. I’m still trying to figure out exactly what that means and where that path will lead me, but I acknowledge the need and beginning the journey.

Assessment

Physical assessment. Physically I rate myself as a six, on a scale of one to ten. I believe that I’ve moved beyond the basic biological drivers and have reached a point where I’m working on taking correct care of my body. By educating myself about the right foods, nutrition, and taking steps to provide my cells with the materials they need to thrive, I’m moving in the right direction. Many of the things that I know I should do to continually improve my physical health I haven’t started to implement. There seems to be a ‘block’ between knowing what I need to do and practically applying it and having the dedication to maintain it.

Psychological assessment. Psychologically I rate myself as an eight on a scale of one to ten. As someone who has suffered from recurring bouts of severe depression since my early teens, this is an area in which I’ve dedicated a lot of time and attention. It’s taken a long time but I’ve reached a point where my good days far outnumber the bad. In the past year I’ve moved beyond just trying to address my symptoms to actively working towards changing my thoughts and perceptions in ways that foster positivity and happiness. Stress reduction is always in mind and I seek opportunities throughout my day to recalibrate emotionally and minimize anxiety.

Spiritual assessment. Spiritually I rate myself as a three on a scale of one to ten. It wasn’t until participating in this course that I began to understand that religion and spirituality are not the same thing. Having always been averse to organized religion, I mistook spirituality as being part and parcel to that. Ten weeks ago I started on a journey to understanding what spirituality is in general and what it is for me, personally. It’s important to recognize that I’ve taken the first couple steps but I still have a long way to go. Having allowed my personal development to become stunted at what we can ‘see,’ I’ve missed out on a great deal of what can be ‘felt’ through connectedness with others and the world around me.

Goal Development

Physical goals. My goals for my physical wellness are to actively apply the information that I’ve learned over the past year. Specifically, I need to incorporate aerobic activity in my schedule four days a week. Despite being more active than I have been in the past couple of years, my health challenges demand that I do more to build strength and aerobic stamina. By doing so, I can proactively address the cardiovascular complications for which I am at a 30% increased risk, as defined by the National Psoriasis Foundation.

Psychological goals. My goals for my psychological wellness are to establish regular practices that work towards shifting negative thought to positive thought. With depression, it’s easy for thoughts to become negative and self-effacing. In fact, my self-esteem is a specific area in need of development. I need to make the shift from automatically shaming and blaming myself when something doesn’t go as expected to being kind and accepting of myself. Part of that development is about reframing situations themselves.

Spiritual goals. My goals for spiritual wellness are to continue to expand and cultivate a connectedness with the world around me. Rather than limit myself to those around me, I would like to work on developing connections with people and things in the world that I don’t know. It’s time that I start looking for more than day-to-day answers and look for larger truths and a relationship with the universe itself.

Practices for Personal Health

Physical practices. To foster physical wellness I can increase my physical activity and make better food choices. Instead of taking the elevator up to the 14th floor to my office each day, I can stop at the 10th floor and take the stairs the remainder of the way. On my way down I can solely take the stairs. While that may not seem like a tremendous investment, doing that a couple times a day will increase the amount of exercise I get during daily activities without the pressure of adding a time-demanding activity. As my stamina improves I can work up to not taking the elevator at all.

By making ‘better’ food choices I mean that I can limit my consumption of processed foods when alternatives are available. That doesn’t mean that I can’t eat something ‘bad’ not and then, but I need to be more cognizant of whether the food I’m eating is supplying my body with something it needs and not just with something that my tongue wants to taste.

Psychological practices. To foster psychological wellness, I can work with a cognitive behavioral specialist to learn effective ways of changing negative thought patterns and I can incorporate daily practices geared towards improving my self-esteem. Some of these practices could be journaling and creating a Dream Board. Dream Boards can be used to pull together words, statements, and images of which you want to remind yourself each day. Taking the opportunity to remind myself of my positive attributes and reinforcing them can help me become more comfortable with being positive about myself.

Working with a cognitive behavioral therapist is a great way to learn techniques that I can apply throughout the day to shift from automatically perceiving things or situations as negative to a more positive outlook. By increasing the amount of positivity, I’ll likely be less anxious and have more confidence, and thereby experience a reduction in stress.

Spiritual practices. To foster spiritual wellness I would like to begin volunteering at the local Human Society. They have programs that allow you to, over the course of eight weeks, learn to train dogs in preparation for adoption. Because of my love of animals I think is would be a great opportunity to connect with my community through regular volunteer work, as well as with other animal lovers. I imagine that it’s very rewarding to work with an animal and then help find them a human family. It would also be a great educational opportunity.

Commitment

At a minimum I would consider taking the first step towards any of these goals as an accomplishment. By establishing a timeline for myself and measurable goals (exercising for 30 minutes a day, four times a week, for example) is a positive way for me to gauge my success. Since I recognize that I struggle with maintaining activities, regular ‘check-ins’ with myself every four weeks would help me reevaluate my goals and identify any action is needed to support my practices.

As I increase my activity and improve my food choices I can monitor my progress in hopes of losing a pound a week over the next six months. If I find that my weight is stable then I can adjust my activity and food choices accordingly.