PRINCIPLES OF WELLNESS
What is Wellness?
Wellness is maximum health potential. It is a holistic philosophy and active lifestyle that doesn't wait for something to go wrong before you do something about it. We tend to view someone who shows no signs or symptoms of health problems as healthy. Wellness goes beyond the absence of symptoms and works toward achieving maximum potential and prevention of health problems.
What is holistic healthcare?
Holistic philosophy maintains that an individual is comprised of body, mind, and spirit. These components must be integrated as one in order for the person to be well. Thus, the "whole" person must be assessed and treated when there is a health problem. This philosophy differs from the traditional "allopathic" system of health care which focuses more on the alleviation of symptoms. It is important to recognize that the method of treatment used is not holistic when the approach is allopathic, even if a natural form of healing is used!
Principles of Wellness
There are seven basic principles of wellness which are derived from studies of disease outcome. The following principles are characteristic of those individuals who typically have good outcomes to disease:
1. Wellness is holistic. Rather than focusing on symptoms, it is important to integrate body, mind, and spirit as one whole person.
2. The self is the only true healer. Health professionals can only help facilitate the healing process. It is your body, mind, and spirit that do all the healing.
3. Wellness is your responsibility. Look at each illness as a lesson in achieving wellness rather than blaming yourself. Take credit for feeling good.
4. Positivity is empowerment. Negative thinking strips you of power and control whereas positive thinking empowers you with answers, control, and the way out of illness and problems. All things are composed of equal amounts of positive and negative aspects. In everything is a blessing!
5. Wellness is an active process. Do not wait for good health to happen or be dependent on someone else to fix your problems. You must be actively involved in your health in order to achieve wellness. It is important to ask and learn from your health care provider.
6. Wellness is outcome-oriented. Do not become trapped by focusing on problems. As soon as you identify a problem, put your energy into the solutions.
7. Prevention eliminates the need for treatment. It takes very little time, money, and energy to prevent problems. Truly, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
Road to Wellness
Wellness involves the application of seven areas involved in health and disease. The degree of impact any one area has on a particular health problem but, they will all have some degree of involvement in the cause, effect, and alleviation of health problems. The following is a brief description of the seven components of wellness:
Physical - Good health involves appropriate exercise, body composition, and care of the body. Your body is your temple so, treat is accordingly!
Mental - It is important to recognize patterns of thinking, believing, and feeling as well as behavioral factors in all health problems. What you think, feel, and believe dictates what happens to you!
Spiritual - Everything happens for a reason and there is an important lesson in all things no matter how severe the problem. Bad cannot exist without good. It is vital to look for the good in all illness!
Nutritional - Nutrients are the ingredients in the recipe for life. Make sure that you have plenty of ingredients needed for recovery and optimum health. You are what you eat!
Sleep - Good sleep hygiene is vital to life and for proper mental and physical health. It is needed to grow, heal, restore energy, prepare the body for future demands, mental function, and most life functions. If you impair sleep, you impair your waking life and health!
Environmental - What you do to your environment, you do to yourself. The environment affects your health through your senses. It is important to monitor and adjust your sensory input so that the environment does not adversely affect your health. By modifying your environment, you change your sensory input which can improve your health!
Life Skills - It is important to acquire the skills and have the proper tools to "do" life. Knowing what not to do means little unless you know what to do and how to do it.
