True and Total Health

     I made sure to do this weeks exercise early in the week so that I was less stressed during it. I'm not saying I'm a super stressed out person. But at the end of the school week all I want to think about is getting everything turned in on time and the last thing I want to do is sit quietly and do an exercise like this. I liked the subtle mind exercise much better than the loving kindness one. As I mentioned last week I didn't like the idea of "breathing in" someone's pain or what have you and "breathing out" anything to them. That's a bit to new age-ish for me. There were positives and negatives to the subtle mind exercise. I liked how it started out having me focus on my breathing by paying attention to either the rise and fall of my chest or the air coming in and out of my nose. I chose to focus on the rise and fall of my chest. I also enjoyed the sound of the ocean as well as the addition of subtle music. Although the music could have been  a smidgeon louder. The breaks in between the instruction got ridiculously long for me. When I was told I could stop focusing on my chest rising and falling and wait for further instruction I got really fidgety and bored. I think this was for two reasons. One was the length of the pause (forever!) and another was the lack of thought direction. I didn't know what to focus on or think about or even if I was supposed to be. Because of the general lack of direction this exercise didn't work for me overall. I would have had a better experience by just putting on some calming music/background noise (water, birds, etc.) and sitting in a quiet place with my eyes closed in quiet contemplation. Just breathing, thinking and praying.

     We humans are far more complex than mere machines. All aspects of the human body work together as one glorious synchronized system. Unfortunately in the world we live in it is easy to throw this system out of whack. This could be from bad nutrition, a lack of exercise, a stressful environment, etc. Any one of those things is going to affect the entire system. Stress, for example, is proven to negatively affect the immune system and can leave a person at a higher risk for sickness and disease. This is also why the spiritual aspect of a person is important. It is all interconnected. If the spirit is in bad health it can cause the body to be in bad health as well and vice versa. For me when I am stressed or angry I can easily develop a headache and my irritable bowel syndrome can act up. I also notice that when I spend more time in prayer and Bible study I gain much more patience, peace, and calmness. However the opposite is also true. If I don't spend any time in prayer or in the Word I am much more impatient and quick to anger. So doing those things really helps me deal with life's stresses, both big and small.  So just as our bodies are complex total health is also. It is not isolated to only exercise, only nutrition, only mental health, etc. True and total health is finding a healthy balance in all areas of your life.

Thanks for reading and have a great week!

 

 

Loving Kindness

1. Describe your experience. Did you find it beneficial? Difficult? Why or why not? Would you recommend this to others? Why or why not?

I really wanted to like this exercise. I like how it started out having you focus on someone you love and then later on has you focus on others again. But in general I had trouble with this exercise. One reason was because I thought the directions were rather vague and sometimes unrealistic. For instance it is one thing to contemplate someone's suffering and another to "breath it in". We are also told many times to "breath out" for example peace and wholeness. I'm just not comfortable with this. It seems rather new age-ish to me.  Also the gaps between the voice guidance was sometimes too long which led my mind to wander. I do like the idea of the loving kindness exercise because that's a great thing to focus on and remind yourself about. I wouldn't recommend this specific exercise to people because of the lack of specific direction, long pauses, and the new age feel that it has. but I would recommend an exercise like this if I found one I did like and thought would be appropriate for the person.

1. What is the concept of "mental workout"? What does the research indicate are the proven benefits of a mental workout? How can you implement mental workouts to foster your psychological health?

Mental Workout also known as Contemplative Practice is a way to expand the mind and better yourself. Much like a physical work out mental workouts need to be done on a regular basis to achieve lasting benefits. "Research studies and personal reports have also demonstrated that mental training can transform the mind by reducing disturbing emotions that cause anger, hatred, fear, worry, confusion, and doubt while enhancing positive emotions such as patience, loving-kindness, openness, acceptance, and happiness. This mental transformation, acting through the mind/body connection, provides enhanced resistance to mental distress and physical disease, expands our healing capacities, and promotes well-being" (Dacher, 2006).

 

Reference:

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

 

Physical, Spiritual, and Psychological Wellbeing

     When it comes to my physical well-being I would have to rate myself a 5. I don't have any diseases, high blood pressure or high cholesterol levels. However I do have genetically bad knees which have been damaged further from years of abuse (military and police training as well as sports injuries). To add to that I am overweight which has been a constant struggle for many years now. The added weight is also bad for my knees as well as my back. My energy levels are low and my metabolism is really slow. You could also call it very efficient because if there was a famine I would out live a lot of people! But this also makes it extremely easy for me to lose weight and keep it off. I've learned a lot about health and nutrition over the past few years and am working to incorporate my knowledge into my life.
    I would rate my spiritual wellbeing at a 6. Mainly because I have been lax when it comes to my own personal prayer life and don't study the Bible nearly as much as I need to. I almost get overwhelmed by the thought of everything that I need to incorporate into my day. I want to get to the point where all of these things are second nature instead of being sporadic as they are now.
     For my psychological wellbeing I would rate myself a 7. There are family problems that have deep roots into my past that I am still figuring out how to deal with. My relationship with my Father is one. He was a mentally abusive parent and our relationship is not good. My dealings with him also caused me to be quick to anger with my husband which is not a good thing. It's a protective response, but it isn't always appropriate. It's just that when a man talks to me a certain way or with a certain tone I am quick to correct it. More often than not my husband doesn't even realize he did anything wrong. So that is something that I am working on. Being slow to anger, being patient, and showing Godly love.

"Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance." 1 Corinthians 13:4-7

     There are lots of things I can implement in my life to help me achieve my goals. For my physical wellbeing goals I can incorporate daily exercise as well as continuing to revamp my diet until it has become optimal. It may come down to doing it cold turkey, but I have as yet been unable to fully commit. For my spiritual wellbeing I can add a daily Bible study and prayer time. For that it will be important to figure out what time of day would work best and stick to it. I can't let distractions keep me from doing this as it has in the past. For my psychological wellbeing I can read my motivational verse (1 Cor. 13:4-7) daily. When I do get angry I need to take time to cool down before I address the issue. Anger only begets anger.
     With regard to the relaxation exercise I really didn't like it at all. First of all I was in a really frustrated state when I started it (my computer doesn't like this blog format apparently and this is causing me many problems!). I was ok at first because I do like to be lead through breathing exercises. But when the guy started talking about imagining the parts of the body like the colors of the rainbow and to imagine the color red shooting out of my spine, etc. I was annoyed by it. I just can't relate to it I guess. I am not apposed to visualization exercises in general, but I do prefer them to be more realistic. It's one thing to imagine a body part relaxing or healing and another to imagine light shooting out of it. LOL. That's just my opinion though. I just didn't enjoy it.

Journey on Relaxation Exercise

Voice lead relaxation exercises aren't really my cup of tea. I have used one before that I did like so I guess it's all about finding what works for you. In this particular instance I didn't really like the exercise. The male voice that was used was so soft spoken that I could barely hear him even though my speakers were up all of the way. I do understand why he is speaking softly but it should be so soft that people have to struggle to hear. It didn't take long for me to get distracted and find myself thinking of other things. I kept trying to refocus, but kept failing. Also I don't really like exercises that try to get you to move blood through your body with your mind. I've never felt that it works. Even when I am really focused nothing happens. I had the same outcome with this exercise. Nada. I did get sleepy though, but that's because I haven't been sleeping well, my eyes were shut and I was comfy on my couch so...yeah. I prefer visualization exercises that take me to someplace relaxing with appropriate background noise or exercises that focus on breathing and things I can actually control.

Welcome Statement

Hello all and welcome to my blog! The past two weeks have been absolutely insane for me and it's been all I can do to keep up with it all. Things should calm down for me after this week which will be a relief. At the moment the thought of adding a blog to my workload is a little overwhelming. Not because I find it difficult, but because a blog can be time consuming. But I think I will find it enjoyable when I have more time, because I do enjoy writing. I decided to name my blog Healthful Pursuits because I felt like I related to it. My life has become about the pursuit of health. Health is a journey down a long never ending road. The level of difficulty on our journey depends on many factors the most important of which is our lifestyle choices. This is something that a few years ago I had never considered. But after struggling with my weight for years and being misinformed by a supposed weight loss expert I decided to take my health into my own hands and "pursue" health for myself. Since then I have been researching health and wellness with an emphasis on nutrition and eventually this lead me to pursue a degree in the subject. So here I am. Let's hop on the health train and see where it takes us! Thanks for stopping by!