Importance of Health and Wellness - Essay Example

Behavior Contract s 8 January Health and Wellness 0 Introduction Health and wellness are some of the commonly confused terms used by people today. The two are certainly related to each other, but they have their differences especially when used in varying contexts. According to my understanding, health refers to an individual’s state of completeness in terms of the mental, social and physical welfare. Therefore, this means that for someone to be termed as healthy, all the three aspects have to be complete and not just the physical part as it used to be sometime back. Conversely, wellness can be described as the maintenance of a balance between six different aspects of health i.e. emotional health, physical health, social health, spiritual health, intellectual health and environmental health. In other words, when a person strives to achieve wellness, he or she endeavors to strike the balance between these aspects. Thus, such a person is said to be leading a healthy lifestyle (McConnell 2014, pg. 49 ). As a young woman and a single mother of two daughters, life demands can at times overwhelm me. I have to keep track of every activity I partake to ensure that I observe all the aspects of my health and wellness. I have come to realized that I need to watch various areas of my life for achievement of health and wellness. Some of these key areas include my family’s nutrition, body exercising, management of friendships and family relationships, decision-making, stress management, life fulfilment and financial management among others. I hope that by formulating this health behavior contract, I will manage my health better, and expectedly, develop more as a good mother to my daughters and be more physically fit. Like anybody else, I have my strong points and my weaknesses in life. For this reason, I clearly understand the need to focus more on my strengths while striving to improve on my weaknesses. For example, I have very creditable socializing skills, and thus I am able to keep friendships for long. It is through this strength that I have developed a very cordial relationship with my daughters and family as well. Additionally, I have devised great ways of fighting and managing stress in my life through engaging in activities such as taking yoga classes, openness and problem sharing with trusted friends and meditation. On the contrary, I have some few areas that I need to improve such as on financial discipline, eating patterns and inconsistent exercising. Looking at my strengths and weaknesses as highlighted above, I can acknowledge some of the positive health behaviors that I engage in. First, I love going out and meeting with friends during my free time while also ensuring that my daughters accompany me to most of such places. This has helped to increase my friends’ network while also enabling me to live quite a fulfilling life that is void of accumulated stressors. On the other hand, I have noted that I tend to overspend especially when confronted with impulse buying that has been driven by my daughters or friends’ demands. I have also noted that I regularly lose track of my feeding patterns, sometimes under eating during my busy days and craving for junk food when out with my friends. I also understand that I need to work on my consistency in body exercising since I rarely honor my gymnastic schedules. Through these negative behaviors, I have at times found myself in bad financial situations since I rely on an end-month based salary. I have also developed a problem with weight management, struggling to maintain my preferred body shape due to inconsistencies in my eating and exercising patterns. 2.0 BEHAVIOR CONTRACT I. HEALTH CHANGES A. Physical health B. Intellectual health C. Financial health II. SMART GOALS I, __________________, agree to work on the SMART Goals as listed below. These are related to the Wellness category I have indicated above. SMART GOAL ( steps to reaching my dream To be reached by: 1. I will attend 2 gym classes every week 8 February 2015 2. I will read one book every month 8 February 2015 3. I will save $500 every month. 8 February 2015 III. MOTIVATION & CONFIDENCE I rate my motivation and confidence on a scale of 0-10 My motivation is 9. My confidence is: 9. IV. TIMEFRAME I will begin on 9 January 2015 and plan to reach my goal by 8 February 2015. V. . OBJECTIVES To reach my final goal above, I have planned the following schedule of objectives. For each of these steps in my program, I will reward myself as listed. Objective Due date Reward Smart Goal 1 1. Subscribe to a gym service in my locality 12 January 2015 None 2. Leave the office an hour early every Tuesday and Friday to create time for my exercises at the gym. 13 January 2015 Take my family out for a dinner twice a month. 3. Skip using a rope every morning which will help to supplement my exercises at the gym. 9 January 2015 None Smart Goal 2 1. Research and determine my favorite book genre and taste. 9 January 2015 None 2. Search for a bookshop and buy a book. 10 January 2015 None 3. Create one hour in the evening before going to bed and half an hour after waking up for reading. 12 January 2015 Buy myself a chocolate. Smart Goal 3 1. Write down all my personal and family expenses projected for a month. 9 January 2015 None 2. Formulate a budget and place it at an easily accessible location in my house. 10 January 2015 None 3. Reduce the frequencies of visiting shops and groceries which will help to curb impulse buying. 12 January 2015 Take my family for an out-of-town trip at the end of every year. VI. MONITOR I will use various tools to facilitate my progress monitoring towards my final goal: 1. Goal 1- I will use a weighing scale and a strength machine to determine my body weight changes and general body fitness. 2. Goal 2- I will record the number of pages I read every day on my diary. 3. Goal 3- I will cross every item or service in the budget that I purchase in the course of the month. VII. CHALLENGES I anticipate the following challenges as I work towards my goal, and have identified effective strategies for minimizing those challenges. Challenge Strategy Smart Goal 1 1. It might be difficult to create a balance between my job, family and exercises time. I will try to convince my bosses to excuse me earlier from the office during my exercising days. 2. Gym services can be quite pricy in my location. I will conduct more research to look for more affordable gym service in my town. Smart Goal 2 1. I have never completed reading a whole book in my life so I anticipate the learning process might be difficult at the start. I understand this challenge and thus I am prepared to patiently learn the reading habit. I plan to take my time until I am used to the habit. 2. My job and family commitments might pose a challenge to my reading time availability. I will strive to be completing my family commitments early enough in the evening while also ensuring that I wake up earlier to create reading time in the morning. Smart Goal 3 1. My daughters and friends might be an impediment to my discipline to honoring my money allocation and budgetary plans. Limit the number of shopping activities by buying the goods in bulk. 2. It might be difficult to suddenly drop my bad financial habits such as impulse buying. I will let my friends and daughters understand that I am fighting this bad habit. I sign this contract to indicate my personal commitment to reach my goal. ________________________________________________ 3.0 Health Behavior Change Contract: Summary Report This is a summary of my progress report since signing a behavior change a month ago. I had three main goals to achieve from the contract namely; To attend the gym twice a week. To read one book every month. To save $500 every month. I am glad today to report that I have a positive report to make after completing the first month. I have attended 7 out of the 8 gym practices since enrolling for the services on 12 January 2015. I have since lost 2 kilograms and my body feels lighter and certainly fitter. I have managed to take my family out for a dinner once during that period which took place on 29 January 2015. I bought an inspirational book by the title Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren which I am about to complete reading, probably in two days’ time. I opined that I have done well in learning the reading habit since this will be the first book that I ever completed reading. I have bought myself 3 bars of chocolate so far. I opened a saving bank account in which I deposited $500 on 3 February 2015 as my initial amount. I hope to maintain this saving habit so that I can manage to take my family out on an-out-of town trip at the end of this year. Important strategies that worked It is evident that my behavior changing journey is on the right track and that everything is working as expected. However, I will highlight some of the important strategies that have been influential in facilitating this to happen. I spoke to my boss and he got convinced to excuse me to leave earlier than usual on Tuesdays and Fridays. This has been an influential factor to my discipline in attending nearly all my gym practice sessions. I rescheduled my sleeping and waking time to 10.00 pm and 5.00 am respectively. This has provided more time to accommodate my added activities such as reading and training sessions. I am gradually shunning my habit of avoiding shopping malls and other markets where I am prone to falling back to my impulse buying habits. I also went for my bulk shopping at the start of the February which will limit my frequencies to these places. Challenges faced in my behavior change As expected, I have faced several challenges in my journey to adapt to the new behaviors and habits, among them being body exhaustion and stress. I had anticipated these challenges due to the added activities and commitments that were imminent following the contractual terms involved. However, my body is adapting quite well to these changes since I feel more relaxed and fitter now. Initially, I had a problem with sleeping problems due to what I assume was a manifestation of body stress due to sleep deprivation. However, I have since gotten used to that. I would say that the strategies are working out fine and I hope to maintain them for the upcoming month. 4.0 What I learned from my Behavioral Change Contract- My Reflections One of the key lessons learned through my experience with the Behavioral Change Contract is that one needs to be realistic when setting the goals and objectives. The rewards are also an important part of the arrangement since they serve as an incentive for achieving the goals thus they are a source of motivation. If possible, one should have an accountability company, for example, friends or family members who can help you to stick to your declarations especially during the low periods. From my experience, a Behavioral Health Contract can be a successful tool for behavior change. Bibliography McConnell, K. E. (2014). Health for life. Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics Read More