Hello Everyone!
Thank you all for a great term! My health ratings have not really changed since Unit 3. I have had no time to myself to make the necessary changes in my life to improve my overall health. I am still at a 7 for physical health and spiritual health. I am also still a 9 for emotional health. I wish I could find the time to really make the changes and make them stick. I have not really worked towards my goals that I established in unit 3. I have slightly increased my physical activity by running with my dog though. This is really the only change that I have implemented into my life. The time for change will come but right now I can only focus on things that I need to do immediately; it sounds like an excuse but it is really a time crunch for me.
This course has really helped me understand the importance of the mind. I have always known the importance of the mind in wellness but this class only emphasized it further. The most rewarding part about this class was the meeting all the people in this class; I am now associated with some very wonderful people. I did not really run into too many difficulties in this class. It was enjoyable so nothing seemed too hard. This class has help me help others by opening up new opportunities and exercises that I can share with clients. Thanks again Everyone!
Bradly Leis
Monday, October 29, 2012
Monday, October 22, 2012
One More Week...Here is my Final!
Introduction:
I
It
is very important for a health and wellness professional to develop all aspects
of health including psychological health, spiritual health, and physical
health. This is because health and
wellness is not just about healing the body; health and wellness is also about developing
a clear and healthy mind (Dacher, 2006).
A combination of these three aspects of health creates a picture of
perfect health; perfect health cannot be attained if a person is lacking in any
of the three aspects of health.
Patients/clients of health and wellness professionals are not a one size
fits all when it comes to treatments.
These patents could be lacking in any of the three aspects of
health. It is important for a health and
wellness professional to be able to identify where that person is lacking and
how to improve that person’s overall health.
The identification of flaws in a patient’s overall health is easier
identified if the health and wellness professional is strong in the area that
the patient is lacking. If a health and
wellness is lacking in a particular aspect of health, they may have difficulty
identifying where the patient/client is lacking in their personal health as
well. It is also important to exhibit
manifestations of good overall health.
If a health and wellness professional has an overall good level of
health it will show; conversely, if a health and wellness professional is
lacking in an area of health then that will show as well. A patient/client is likely to respond better
to someone that expresses strong qualities in the specific area of health that
the patient needs improvement in. It is
also important to develop the high qualities of health by experience. Experience allows a health and wellness
professional to pull information from their past to help aid a patient/client
in improving their health.
I
need improvement in the physical aspect of health. I was once a very physical individual with
very few physical limits. I am not in
bad shape now but I could use some improvement.
I have great psychological health and good spiritual health but my
physical health could be improved. To
feel complete in my journey to health, I need to lose some weight and increase
my muscle mass. I need to revamp my
physical activity level and improve my diet.
Assessment:
II
I
would consider myself a relatively healthy person physically, emotionally, and
spiritually. I can rate each aspect of my overall health with a 1-10
scoring system; 1 means the worst health possible and a 10 being the best
health achievable. I would consider my
physical health to be a 6. I could be physically healthier but I am
pretty content with my physical health. I used to be a 10 but that went
away when I quit my weightlifting routine about 6 years ago; before that I was
a monster. My spiritual health would be at a 7. I do not have much
religion in my life but I am content with that; I do have questions about life
that are yet to be answered but my life is not over yet, I still have time to
figure it out. I have an emotional health of about 9. I can control
my emotions pretty well and do not let them get the best of me. I never
really have any emotional problems but I could not give myself a 10 because
there are days that I feel really run down mentally.
Goal
development: III
I
could help my physical health by simply increasing my physical activity
level every day. I could be a lot more physical and in a lot better
shape. I spend a lot of time sitting on a computer completing various
task, this leaves much less time that I could be physically active. I am always busy so time is very precious to
me. I am privileged with very little
spare time. This leaves me with limited
time for meal planning and preparation.
This leads to an inferior diet.
If I were to alter my time management skills then I could make room for
an improved diet and an improved physical routine. I have a goal of beginning a fitness program
at a local fitness facility. My spiritual health could be potentially
better with more life experiences. I also could explore some religion
branches in this life to see if anything really fits with what I feel about
this life. I have a goal to go to church with my wife and see what she
was raised to believe in the Catholic religion. My emotional health could
be better if I had less stress in my life. This could be accomplished my
lessening my load of tasks that I try to accomplish every day. I have a
goal to take at least 30 minutes of time for myself every day. I need
time to just relax and do my own thing.
Practices for personal health:
IV
The best strategy that I could
implement into my life to improve my physical health would be to better manage
my time. This would increase the amount
of time that I have available for exercise and diet preparation. Both of these aspects affect my physical
health greatly. I can also implement an
active physical regiment for an increase of cardiovascular and skeletal
muscular health.
Spirituality can be fostered by
life experiences. There are a lot of
things that go on in this world. Most
people can only imagine the experiences of others and the experience of
nature. It is hard to connect the
questions in life to answers if a person cannot fill in the gap with personal
experience. If a person is to find true
spirituality then they must strive to live the most dynamic life possible. Ever life experience allows a person to
create a perspective on that scenario; this forms an opinion that forms an idea
about a particular thought. The thought
process makes up a large part of spirituality.
What should a person believe and who they should follow, or not follow,
are all decisions that need to be made by an individual. These decisions cannot be taken lightly and
these decisions should only be decided on when the individual has had a wide
scope of experience in these matters. It
is hard to find out what is out there without broadening the scope of life and
viewing all aspects. Meditation is good
exercises that can be used to get a better perspective on life. It can be used to clear the mind of needless
“chatter” so the mind can clearly assess the situation. I could use more meditation to give my
spirituality some reassurance. I personally
feel that the best way to find spirituality is to follow your heart and see
what makes you happy. It is very hard to
have a spiritual side if you are not happy in this life. Within that happiness is something that makes
a person feel like they belong and allows them to welcome others into the fold
of happiness. Spirituality should not
lead to despair and sadness but instead foster love and belonging. I best achieve spirituality by spending time
in nature. This is a place uncorrupted
by man and emotional influence. This is
where I can reflect on life and see life for what it really is. I can also find spirituality in people. I have always felt that humans are inherently
good. Negative human emotion and actions
are fueled by non-human factors such as wealth.
People are people and just want to be happy. Deep down people want to belong and to want
to be loved. I seek the inner feelings
of people to help find spirituality. A
good exercise to implement into my life would be the “loving kindness” exercise. This exercise is all about human relations
between one another and how to foster forgiveness and love.
Psychological health can be
fostered by happiness and lack of stressors.
Stressors are anything that causes wear and tear on the body's physical
or mental resources (Stressor, 2012).
Stressors place a burden on people and cause negative feelings about
many aspects of life such as financing, family, commitments, and work. If a person can keep stressors to a minimum
then they have a better chance at a high level of psychological health. Another factor to keep psychological health
at its highest is to maintain good physical health. A high level of physical health fosters good
physical feeling and great self-esteem.
A lack of self-esteem combined with excessive life stressors is a recipe
for poor psychological health. I will
implement physical exercise into my life to better boost my physical shape thus
improving my self-esteem. I will also
implement meditation into my life for some clarity. I have a very big problem with keeping a
clear, one track, mind. Meditation can
help clear that mind of unnecessary thought and foster clear thinking. Clear thinking would help better organize my
days; consequently, a better organized day leads to less stress. A boost of self-esteem and a decrease of
daily stress will help me foster a higher level of psychological health.
Commitment:
V
Assessment
is a vital part of seeking improvement.
It is near impossible to see exact changes if you have little idea of
where you were before the progress started.
Another major benefit of assessment is to see where you improved and how
the improvement was possible. This
information is invaluable when it comes to even further progression or helping
others achieve their goals in similar aspects of life. I can log information and feelings a few
times a week for the next 6 months. I
will do this during my progression to leading to an overall healthier level of
health. This logged information will be
done in a personal journal that can be used to see where I succeeded and where
I struggled. I can see how my different
aspects of health were affecting my overall health on a daily basis; this can
lead to conclusions on how different events affect your personal life. This information can be used to either eliminate
or include more of specific events to better my life. I can look back and see how I struggled and
how I overcame that struggle. That is a
good example of how life experience can be an invaluable tool to foster better
health in yourself as well as others.
Even though ever person on this earth is different, experiences gained
in personal life have a chance to change another person’s life for the
better.
Thanks Class!
Saturday, October 13, 2012
Wrapping Up This Term
I feel like all of the mind and body exercises that we did this term were beneficial but two of them were a cut above the rest. Loving Kindness was one of my favorite exercises followed by Meeting Aesclepius. There is a reason for choosing those two exercises.
First, Loving kindness focused on loving and helping others. This is something that people do not do much of any more. I have seen the worst in people in my line of work; I work in the death and dying industry as a funeral director apprentice. I have seen people just look at another and blatantly say that they were no good for anything or that they have nothing to live for, or even that they were a waste of skin. This is not uncommon in my line of work, even within families. People NEED to get back to helping their neighbors. We are a global community and we cannot act as one if we cannot get along and get over our very small differences. Love is something that can be projected towards others. Love and kindness are much more important than the dollar bill; I feel that most violence, distrust, and greed is derived from money. The world would be a much better place to live in if everyone could love one another.
Secondly, Meeting Aesclepius is also very important. A person is defined by their thoughts and how ideas are portrayed through them and to them. Ideas fly through the human mind at high speeds and with a lot of chaos. This exercise is designed to see through the chaos to see thoughts clearly. This exercise is also designed to let the participant focus on what is important and push aside ideas that are clogging the process. I feel that if a person whats to be the best that they can then they cannot leave things to chance. If a person can see thoughts clearly then they can anticipate an outcome or situations for the future. This can be done if the mind is silenced and free of distractions.
If these two ideas are combined they focus on both the individual and the community. If both have a healthy relationship then the world becomes a better place. These ideas are already in my life. I try to love my neighbor and I try to see clearly. I have a hard time seeing clearly; my mind is a hurricane of ideas all the time. I can transition through a dozen different ideas in a matter of seconds, it gets hectic sometimes and it drives my wife insane. I could implement both exercises into my life more frequently as a reminder of how important each of these factors are to human life and survival.
Bradly Leis
First, Loving kindness focused on loving and helping others. This is something that people do not do much of any more. I have seen the worst in people in my line of work; I work in the death and dying industry as a funeral director apprentice. I have seen people just look at another and blatantly say that they were no good for anything or that they have nothing to live for, or even that they were a waste of skin. This is not uncommon in my line of work, even within families. People NEED to get back to helping their neighbors. We are a global community and we cannot act as one if we cannot get along and get over our very small differences. Love is something that can be projected towards others. Love and kindness are much more important than the dollar bill; I feel that most violence, distrust, and greed is derived from money. The world would be a much better place to live in if everyone could love one another.
Secondly, Meeting Aesclepius is also very important. A person is defined by their thoughts and how ideas are portrayed through them and to them. Ideas fly through the human mind at high speeds and with a lot of chaos. This exercise is designed to see through the chaos to see thoughts clearly. This exercise is also designed to let the participant focus on what is important and push aside ideas that are clogging the process. I feel that if a person whats to be the best that they can then they cannot leave things to chance. If a person can see thoughts clearly then they can anticipate an outcome or situations for the future. This can be done if the mind is silenced and free of distractions.
If these two ideas are combined they focus on both the individual and the community. If both have a healthy relationship then the world becomes a better place. These ideas are already in my life. I try to love my neighbor and I try to see clearly. I have a hard time seeing clearly; my mind is a hurricane of ideas all the time. I can transition through a dozen different ideas in a matter of seconds, it gets hectic sometimes and it drives my wife insane. I could implement both exercises into my life more frequently as a reminder of how important each of these factors are to human life and survival.
Bradly Leis
Thursday, October 4, 2012
Silence that waterfall!
This weeks exercise is all about quieting the mind. The narraroator first explains how the mind first begins as a loud waterfall. Over time, with practice and training, the human mind can learn to silence the mind and sort out all the noise. The mind is then compared to a quiet river merging into a calm sea. This is something that does not happen overnight but instead is something that is developed and learned. A human mind could be compared to an onion. The outer layers are loud and the thoughts are hard to sift through. As the layers of the onion are peeled back, the layers become increasingly quieter and the thoughts become more focused. This is what this exercise was based on this week. This was a pretty relaxing exercise.
"One cannot lead another where one has not gone himself." This is a very important aspect of leading. It is not possible to tell someone something that you, yourself, have not personally experienced. This is because having "experience" is where experience comes from. Without experience, one can only speculate on what that experience would be like. This is very important to health and wellness professionals because a health and wellness professional is there to guide others towards a better and healthier life. It is up to the professional to follow the directed path before they could tell someone else to follow that same path. This is like receiving information from a doctor telling you to lose weight be he is also overweight. One can best lead by example. If you tell someone that a change in their life could lead to a higher level of wellness and that the work to get to that goal is worth the effort. If the teacher does not follow that same advice then this shows two negative aspects immediately. The first contradiction is that a healthier life may not be a better way to live. The second contradiction shows that maybe the effort is not worth the payoff, if it was than the instructor would also be following that road. There is an obligation of the health provider to develop themselves both spiritually and psychologically because a greater sense of spiritually and psychological health means a healthier level of wellness. Spirituality can be accomplished by religion and by searching for aspects of life that are bigger than yourself. Psychological health can be aided by the development of spiritual health; increased spiritual health increases the feeling of belonging and decreases the unknowns in this life that cause stress. Psychological health can be improved by good physical health and by performing physiological improvement based exercises.
Bradly Leis
"One cannot lead another where one has not gone himself." This is a very important aspect of leading. It is not possible to tell someone something that you, yourself, have not personally experienced. This is because having "experience" is where experience comes from. Without experience, one can only speculate on what that experience would be like. This is very important to health and wellness professionals because a health and wellness professional is there to guide others towards a better and healthier life. It is up to the professional to follow the directed path before they could tell someone else to follow that same path. This is like receiving information from a doctor telling you to lose weight be he is also overweight. One can best lead by example. If you tell someone that a change in their life could lead to a higher level of wellness and that the work to get to that goal is worth the effort. If the teacher does not follow that same advice then this shows two negative aspects immediately. The first contradiction is that a healthier life may not be a better way to live. The second contradiction shows that maybe the effort is not worth the payoff, if it was than the instructor would also be following that road. There is an obligation of the health provider to develop themselves both spiritually and psychologically because a greater sense of spiritually and psychological health means a healthier level of wellness. Spirituality can be accomplished by religion and by searching for aspects of life that are bigger than yourself. Psychological health can be aided by the development of spiritual health; increased spiritual health increases the feeling of belonging and decreases the unknowns in this life that cause stress. Psychological health can be improved by good physical health and by performing physiological improvement based exercises.
Bradly Leis
Saturday, September 29, 2012
Unit 6 Already...Can't wait to be done
Hello Everyone! This week we were doing the universal loving-kindness exercise and the integral assessment. The universal loving-kindness was an OK exercise but it was not near as good as the loving-kindness exercise that we did earlier this term. My biggest problem was trying to remember the lines that I was supposed to repeat for 10 minutes. I could not keep my eyes closed because I had to constantly go back to reading the book. I would try to not read the book and then I would screw up and I would lose my relaxation. I don't know if it is something that I would enjoy doing frequently. The thought behind it was good but it is not for me.
The integral assessment was also an OK exercise. My feeling is that a person does not need an exercise like this one to tell them what they need to improve on in life. I do not know if it is just me that thinks this way or if people really need this type of exercise to uncover where they need improvement in their life. I know I need to improve on my work. I am working on starting a new business, in a field that I LOVE, and I need to work really hard at that but in the mean time I work for someone else. I get so tired of doing the job that I currently do, which says a lot because I have always found something that I like in every job that I have ever had. I need to work on realizing that this job I have now is only temporary and it will be over soon. I need to keep my level of quality up even though I am ready to walk out the door. Some days get soooooo stressful but everyday I come back and do it again. Thanks everyone.
Bradly Leis
The integral assessment was also an OK exercise. My feeling is that a person does not need an exercise like this one to tell them what they need to improve on in life. I do not know if it is just me that thinks this way or if people really need this type of exercise to uncover where they need improvement in their life. I know I need to improve on my work. I am working on starting a new business, in a field that I LOVE, and I need to work really hard at that but in the mean time I work for someone else. I get so tired of doing the job that I currently do, which says a lot because I have always found something that I like in every job that I have ever had. I need to work on realizing that this job I have now is only temporary and it will be over soon. I need to keep my level of quality up even though I am ready to walk out the door. Some days get soooooo stressful but everyday I come back and do it again. Thanks everyone.
Bradly Leis
Saturday, September 22, 2012
Hello Everyone!
I personally like the last two exercises for class, Subtle Mind and Loving Kindness. These were both very relaxing; much more relaxing than that annoying guy from the first two exercises. I really like how Loving Kindness took to the focus off of the listener and placed the focus on others. This would would be a much better place if everyone thought this way. It is important to give to others and help out when your are needed, its not really that hard to do. This exercise also explains how helping others will also really help yourself. I liked the Subtle Mind exercise because it was just plain soothing. I really enjoyed it because it required you to relax and silence the mind for a duration of time, it can be very hard to silence my mind. I felt much more relaxed after this exercise, until is saw we had a project and assignment to do this week on top of our discussions and blogs; it will be a long next couple of days.
Spiritual wellness is very closely connected to mental wellness and physical wellness. A spiritual connection plugs you into the earth and helps you take in your surroundings. Spiritual wellness allows a person to really feel like they have their own place in this world that was cut out specifically for them. This is a wonderful feeling but can sometimes be hard to achieve. With good mental wellness and physical wellness spiritual wellness is much easier to obtain. I think that be base of wellness is physical wellness. Physical wellness forces your body to feel good and healthy. A healthy body relives a lot of stress on the mind, both physically and mentally. If the body feels good then the mind has less things to worry about; this leaves the mind to really focus on their life. If a person has a better control on their life they are likely going to have a better outlook on things or living situations. If life is good then you feel much better about the world and living in it. This can really help spiritual wellness. It is important to feel like you belong.
This is something that I have personally seen in my life. I used to be a physical machine and felt like I was on the top of the world. I never worried about my body and it seemed like people looked up to me as a model person. This deteriorated as college life went on: full time student, full time work, and lots of homework. This really took a tole on me but it did not effect me mentally right away, it took me losing my physical shape to start feeling the stresses in life. When my physical fitness level dropped so did my mental wellness. When my mental wellness fell so did my spiritual wellness. Sometimes I felt like half a man and that killed my image of myself. It became increasing difficult to handle life as it came but I am finally getting a hold on things. I just need to get back into shape and kick my life up a notch! This was my experience with the subject at hand.
Thanks everyone.
Bradly Leis
I personally like the last two exercises for class, Subtle Mind and Loving Kindness. These were both very relaxing; much more relaxing than that annoying guy from the first two exercises. I really like how Loving Kindness took to the focus off of the listener and placed the focus on others. This would would be a much better place if everyone thought this way. It is important to give to others and help out when your are needed, its not really that hard to do. This exercise also explains how helping others will also really help yourself. I liked the Subtle Mind exercise because it was just plain soothing. I really enjoyed it because it required you to relax and silence the mind for a duration of time, it can be very hard to silence my mind. I felt much more relaxed after this exercise, until is saw we had a project and assignment to do this week on top of our discussions and blogs; it will be a long next couple of days.
Spiritual wellness is very closely connected to mental wellness and physical wellness. A spiritual connection plugs you into the earth and helps you take in your surroundings. Spiritual wellness allows a person to really feel like they have their own place in this world that was cut out specifically for them. This is a wonderful feeling but can sometimes be hard to achieve. With good mental wellness and physical wellness spiritual wellness is much easier to obtain. I think that be base of wellness is physical wellness. Physical wellness forces your body to feel good and healthy. A healthy body relives a lot of stress on the mind, both physically and mentally. If the body feels good then the mind has less things to worry about; this leaves the mind to really focus on their life. If a person has a better control on their life they are likely going to have a better outlook on things or living situations. If life is good then you feel much better about the world and living in it. This can really help spiritual wellness. It is important to feel like you belong.
This is something that I have personally seen in my life. I used to be a physical machine and felt like I was on the top of the world. I never worried about my body and it seemed like people looked up to me as a model person. This deteriorated as college life went on: full time student, full time work, and lots of homework. This really took a tole on me but it did not effect me mentally right away, it took me losing my physical shape to start feeling the stresses in life. When my physical fitness level dropped so did my mental wellness. When my mental wellness fell so did my spiritual wellness. Sometimes I felt like half a man and that killed my image of myself. It became increasing difficult to handle life as it came but I am finally getting a hold on things. I just need to get back into shape and kick my life up a notch! This was my experience with the subject at hand.
Thanks everyone.
Bradly Leis
Saturday, September 15, 2012
Loving Kindness
Hello everyone!
This was a much better exercise than the last 2; this was actually relaxing. I really enjoyed the ocean noises. I also really like that this exercise was all about loving and helping others. This is one of the things that people need to do more often, love their neighbor. People have fallen away from community and have been more focused on themselves. There is very little compassion between strangers in our modern world. This exercise is showing that it is OK to help others and extend kindness to them. There are people in this world that need much more kindness in their life than most of us. I think that this is a wonderful exercise that can really help people resolve inner problems and help them relax. I think that many worries that plague most people are caused by thinking of other people and what they may have done wrong. If a person can let go of these negative thought then they are letting go of many of their problems; with the release of your problems comes relaxation. I would recommend this exercise to other people. I am a pretty relaxed guy because I am not easily affected by the acts and thoughts of other people, I can easily brush those things away and go on with my day. I have enough worries of my own.
Mental workouts are just like any other workout. This is a regiment of daily exercise of the brain. This is equivalent to a body builder doing a daily workout in the gym. Studies show that daily exercise of the mind, over time, will increase the brain's mental capabilities. The brain must maintain this level of training to increase or maintain its capabilities. When the mind stops training than the mental capabilities of the mind will decrease. Mental health exercises can be implemented in everyone's life. The book says to do exercises everyday. I feel that the best way to implement this into my life would be to listen to these audio exercises during idle time such as when I am driving my car or doing solitary tasks at work; I spend a lot of time doing both driving and working alone.
Thanks everyone!
Bradly Leis
This was a much better exercise than the last 2; this was actually relaxing. I really enjoyed the ocean noises. I also really like that this exercise was all about loving and helping others. This is one of the things that people need to do more often, love their neighbor. People have fallen away from community and have been more focused on themselves. There is very little compassion between strangers in our modern world. This exercise is showing that it is OK to help others and extend kindness to them. There are people in this world that need much more kindness in their life than most of us. I think that this is a wonderful exercise that can really help people resolve inner problems and help them relax. I think that many worries that plague most people are caused by thinking of other people and what they may have done wrong. If a person can let go of these negative thought then they are letting go of many of their problems; with the release of your problems comes relaxation. I would recommend this exercise to other people. I am a pretty relaxed guy because I am not easily affected by the acts and thoughts of other people, I can easily brush those things away and go on with my day. I have enough worries of my own.
Mental workouts are just like any other workout. This is a regiment of daily exercise of the brain. This is equivalent to a body builder doing a daily workout in the gym. Studies show that daily exercise of the mind, over time, will increase the brain's mental capabilities. The brain must maintain this level of training to increase or maintain its capabilities. When the mind stops training than the mental capabilities of the mind will decrease. Mental health exercises can be implemented in everyone's life. The book says to do exercises everyday. I feel that the best way to implement this into my life would be to listen to these audio exercises during idle time such as when I am driving my car or doing solitary tasks at work; I spend a lot of time doing both driving and working alone.
Thanks everyone!
Bradly Leis
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