unit 10

I would say physically I remain the same. However, spiritually I gave myself a one before and would now give myself a four. At least now I am conscious of my stressors. Psychologically I scored myself a five and would raise it to a six. I am trying to improve on this area, but it is easier said then done. I have not tried the meditation. I guess I have given up on it. I have used visualization in some instances and that seems to help. Before this course I only thought health involved eating right and exercising. I was able to identify that I was stressed out and in order to be completely healthy needed to find ways to cope. I found some strategies that help me and others that did not. I have to keep trying and working on these techniques to better assist myself and my clients. This course was great! I really did learn a lot.

final

Introduction
It is important for all of us to be of sound health mentally, physically, and spiritually. We are all aware of the diseases associated with inactivity and obesity. What many do not know is that stress can increase our chances for getting the same diseases. Some of the stress-related illnesses are high blood pressure, diabetes, cancer, and cardiac problems. By addressing both the mind and body we can have a higher level of wellness and an improved quality of life.
Assessment
The first task that we must do is assessing our health in each category. This will help us to identify our strengths and weaknesses and can better allow us develop a wellness program best suited for us. In my assessment I scored my physical health 9 out of 10. I exercise daily and I am a competitive boxer. I am of good physical health as well. The reason I did not give myself a perfect score is because I have a tendency to overtrain. If I am tired or exceptionally sore I will work out regardless. This can be detrimental to my health. Nutritionally I give myself 6 out of 10. I get enough carbohydrates, proteins, and fats in my diet. Some of my food choices are not wise. I tend to eat fast food a couple times a week and I have a sweet tooth. I am not overweight so the diet does not affect me there, but eventually these poor eating habits can lead to high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes, or even cancer. Lastly, spiritually I give myself 2 out of 10. Before this class I would have given myself a 0. I totally ignored this aspect of my life. Lately I have been trying some of the practices on a regular basis. I use visualization before every boxing match. I visualize the outcome I want as well as my gameplan. This has led me to be more relaxed before fights and actually has increased my performance. I also try to use some relaxation techniques like meditation. My mind tends to wander and I need to get a handle on that to get the best out of the exercises. Even though I have not mastered the technique I can feel the positive influence they have on me.
Goals
A goal I have for my physical health is to understand it is ok to take a day off if I do not feel up to training. I also want to continue making strides in my athleticism. I want to be faster, more agile, and more powerful. Nutritionally I would like to get a healthier grasp on my diet. Cutting out the fast food and the sweets would be a good start to getting better quality foods. Spiritually I would like to be able to not let the random thoughts that enter my brain control me and stress me out. I want to get a grasp on them and control them.
Practices for Growth in Personal Health
The practices I will implement to assist my goals in physical health are I will have set workout schedule and maybe make a boxing day more relaxed and just work on certain skills. This can help stop me from overtraining and still allow me to be a better athlete. Feeling fresh might also yield immediate results to my sport. Nutritionally I will go to mypyramid.gov and set up an account. In this account I will keep track of all physical activity and my entire food intake. I will make changes to each as needed to help boost my overall health in this area. Spiritually I will continue to implement visualization. I have seen immediate results with this in boxing. I can try applying it to everyday life when I get overwhelmed or stressed out. I can use the visualization technique to take me to a calmer place. I am also going to try to get better at the loving-kindness exercise. Forgiving people is really hard for me and it leads to a lot of stress in my relationships. If I can master this exercise I can reduce stress levels in two ways. The exercise will help me relax and it will also allow me to forgive more easily and decrease stress levels in my relationships.
Commitment
Committing to something new can always be difficult. I will set up scheduled fitness testing to test my progress in each fitness category. Nutritionally I will monitor my weight and body fat as well as focus on the charts that are available on mypyramid.gov. These charts will make sure I am getting foods from all food groups. Spiritually I will monitor my success at the exercises. I will also keep a stress journal. I will attempt to write down an entry every time I get stressed out and I will rate the incident on a scale of 1 to 10. In time these entries should be less and less and with lower scores. Monitoring the program’s success should help me maintain long term success with this program. I can also set up a support group of close friends and family for when times start to get difficult with it.

unit 8

The two exercises I liked best were the loving-kindness and the visualization exercises. I like the loving-kindness one because it is quick, can be done at any time, and it does not ignore negative emotions. It is a good exercise in taking negative emotions and making them positive ones. Also, I have a hard time forgiving people and even though I have not perfected this exercise I believe in the long run it will help reduce my stress levels by allowing me to more easily forgive. The visualization exercises I like because I find them to be easy and I feel an immediate response. I try to visualize myself accomplishing tasks. I have been using this a lot before my fights and training sessions. I feel more confident and relaxed then I did before I applied these exercises.

unit 7

My meditative practices have gotten better each week. I have been focusing a lot on my breathing and just trying to not let my mind wander and start thinking about all the things that stress me out. There were actually a few times this week where I was able to just sit and relax for about ten minutes and it felt great. I am still working on my loving-kindness exercises by just telling myself it is ok to forgive and forget. It is still a work in progress. Even though my meditation practices are not perfect and do not always work I have definitely noticed a difference in my overall well-being. I do not know if it is just due to being conscious of the things that stress me out, but I have been in a better mood lately and less is getting to me. The more I practice the more I should be able to improve upon this.


This quote kind of applies to me now. I am trying to help clients with their spiritual wellness and meditation practices when I have not perfected them myself. I can see where this could be a disadvantage because if I have not experienced what it feels like to achieve this then how can I fuly help them? I think in a way though it is good because my clients and I can grow spiritually together and learn and offer insight that may be able to help one another.

unit 6

I found the loving-kindness exercise to be most beneficial. I liked how it only took ten minutes and it is very simple to perform. I also like how it can be performed at anytime of the day. I found it helps to temporarily relieve some of the stress I have on a day to day basis. The integral assessment I found more difficult. I like how it is set up to focus on what is relevant currently in my life. I have a hard time releasing all mental activity. The secret for me was just to focus on nothing but those words, "releasing all mental activity." Once I was able to get to where I wanted to be and could concentrate this exercise was great in helping me focus my attention to my problem areas. I then focused on what areas are important for my personal development. I know that my spirituality is lacking and that is what I intend to work on. Out of the four quaderants I need to work on my psychospiritual the most. I also liked the reflection process. This was infact my favorite part. Looking back at situations and coming up with ways to better handle them in the future made me feel great at the end. I am going to work on not letting uncontrollable emotions control me. I am going to practice mental witnessing and try to replace these feelings with more neutral feelings.

Mental Workouts

Mental workouts are extremely important to our overall wellness. To achieve overall wellness we must be sound physically and mentally. Mental workouts can help us to alleviate stress and reduce our risk of developing diseases related to stress. Working on our mental fitness can also help us develop our consciousness and the healing aspects of our consciousness. I am going to try to take some time everyday to improve upon my mental fitness and see how it helps me in the long run.