Rating my holistic health and creating goals to improve health

To improve health, you must establish a basis from where you are starting.  You must be honest in your evaluations of yourself and be willing to place the time and effort into changing and improving your health. Physical health encompasses more that what people see on the outside. It is internal and can be analyzed with the use of labs, dignostics, hygiene, and weight management. As for myself, I would grade my physical helath a 7-8 out of 10. Overall, I have a healthy body mass index (BMI), a tool used to determine health based on eliciting someone's height and weight and using an equation to find a percentage of body fat.   My BMI is 19 which is normal for my height and weight. In addition to having a healthy BMI, I work as a nurse walking long distances on the floor each day and my lab results, from a year ago, show perfect health. The only area I am lacking in is learning to relax and stretch my muscles. I injured my knee in sports and I have constant tension in my neck and back. One goal for myself to improve my physical health would be to allot 15 minutes everyday to stretching in the am before work or any daily activities. Included in this goal would be another 15 minute stretch before bed so my muscles relax as I sleep. By accomplishing this goal, my physical health should improve to 9 or 10/10.
Spiritually I would rate my health a 9/10. I feel very connected to my greater power, God. My husband and I both attend church each week, pray each day, "wait on the Lord" several times a week, and worship often. I feel all these things help me to establish my spiritual well-being. One goal, however, that I can implement to improve my spiritual well-being is to dedicate set times to focusing on "waiting on the Lord" and worshipping. It would be less of a struggle I believe to accomplish these goals with pre-established times to accomplish them.
Lastly, my psychological well-being would be rated 7/10. I am a constant thinker and analyzer. However, I allow this to interrupt my daily activities at times and feel very drained at the end of day. I have an amazing husband and family but my OCD personality at work and goal for perfection make stress a huge factor in my life. One priority goal for improving my psychological health is to establish one goal per day at work that I will accomplish and focus on perfecting that. By dissecting my goals for perfection into obtainable challeneges I feel my stress level will decrease significantly.
Overall, I would rate my holistic health 8/10. A "B" average is not bad but I want on the "A" list of health! :)

Unit 3 Rainbow Relaxation Exercise

Today I took a journey through my mind that utilized color to elicit relaxtion and energy. By focusing on the 7 different colors of the rainbow, the exercise utilized the vibrance of each color to create relaxing and rejuvenating images. The initial color, red, was used as a tool to ground my body and establish roots for the exercise. This segment of the exercise was not overly difficult but created issues for the further elements. Because I was so focused on setting my feet in the ground with red, the vibrance of that color clouded my thoughts for orange. In addition, although I was trying to focus my thoughts on the color itself, pictures of people and loved ones were all that surrounded my thoughts with the different colors. Thus, this exercise elicited joy, energy, and relaxation from me but not in the intended ways it was established to do so.

Journey Exercise

I began a journey listening to the relaxation CD provided for this class. Although the power of suggestion is not foreign to me, this exercise did not accomplish all that I had hoped for. Sitting in my chair, I performed the exercise. I immediately felt a level of relaxation wash over me and my muscles and body sank into the chair. However, that is where the effects ended. The journey through suggestions provided by the CD to direct the blood flow in my body to my hands was not successful for me. I felt no increas in heaviness or warmth in my arms and hands. This was very disappointing to me. In addition, I felt it very difficult to completely lose sight of my surroundings even with my eyes closed.
Overall, the exercise helped me to momentarily relax and slightly loosened the tension in my neck. However, I think that I need significant practice with these exercises for the impact to be more beneficial and long lasting. Although my experience was less than successful, I understand the importance of this exercise and would suggest this as a relaxation method for people to use. Practice makes perfect!

Welcome

Welcome to my page dedicated to the building of holistic health. Holistic means whole or complete. Thus, Holistic health focuses on the well-being of not only our physical attributes but our psychological, social, cultural, and spiritual needs. Please enjoy the posts that will discuss exercises and activities to help create health and wellness. SHALOM!!