Kaplan University
HN 420 – 03: Creating Wellness
Psychological and Spiritual Aspects of Healing
Instructor: Dr. Susan Stewart
Deborah Sunblade
July 9, 2010








Project Unit 9
Introduction
Why is it important for health and wellness professionals to develop?
1. Psychologically: To help them understand the levels between the biological, behavioral, and social factors that influence health and wellness. It will help them to find out that they are and how do they see themselves.
2. Spiritually: When treating a patient, it is important to know how their spiritual or religious beliefs may be affecting their feelings about their illness and treatment. Patient’s spiritual beliefs may affect their health care decisions and their ability to follow treatment recommendations.
3. Physically: Patients look to health and wellness professionals for advice and counseling. They need to provide a good example for others to follow.
What areas do you need to develop to achieve the goals you have for yourself?
I need to develop in all three; psychologically, spiritually, and physically.

Assessment
How have you assessed your health in each domain?
By taking a look at me and my circumstances, identifying the areas in my life that need attention, decide on the changes I wish to make and start a program that will help me make those changes.
How do you score your wellness spiritually, physically, and psychologically?
1. Spiritually: I continue to need help in developing spiritually, so I score myself poor.
2. Physically: I again have to score myself as poor.
3. Psychologically: And again, my score would be poor.
Goal Development
List at least one goal you have for yourself in each area, physically, psychologically (mental health), and spiritual.
1. Physically: My goal is to get my physical self more healthy. Right now, the most exercise I get is while I’m at work.
2. Psychologically: My goal is to be more stress free, feel happier, and tries to get off the antidepressant medication I am on.
3. Spiritually: My final goal is to be more spiritual. I can do this by looking more closely and reflect on my thoughts, feelings, beliefs, and motivation.
Practices for Personal Health
What strategies can you implement to foster growth in each of the following domains?
Provide at least two examples of exercises or practices in each domain. Explain how you will implement each example.
Physically: Right now the most exercise I get is at work. After a 3 year illness, it has been difficult for me to start exercising again. However, it has been a year now since I was able to go back to work, so I think it is about time to get myself in better shape. One practice I plan to start is taking a brisk walk for at least 30 minutes every day. My doctor told me this is the best exercise for me to start out on. I can do it early in the morning or in the evening with my husband along for the company. The second thing I plan to do is to start cutting sugar from my diet. I know this will be difficult for me, but I have been thinking about it for awhile. I know others who have done this and they tell me they feel so much better.
Psychologically: I plan to start training my mind. I can do this with some of the exercises we have learned during the past nine weeks. One is the Silence and Stillness exercise and the other is the Visualization exercise. I plan to alternate nights so I can concentrate on just one each night. I can go to my room at night and ask not to be disturbed for at least one hour. I have a really comfortable chair in my room, where it is peaceful and quiet. I will do the exercises as we have done them during our readings.
Spiritually: By looking at my own experiences, the decisions I make, the relationships I have, will help to provide insights on my life’s goals, on the good traits I need to keep and the bad traits I need to get rid of. I plan to use two exercises that we have also used in our readings.
Loving-Kindness and the Subtle mind. Again, I plan to use these exercises on alternate nights. I know I said I would need at least one hour of quiet time, but I will actually need 2 hours. I can do two exercises per night. I will follow them like we did in our readings.
Commitment
How will you assess your progress or lack of progress in the next six months? What strategies can you use to assist in maintaining your long-term practices for health and wellness?
To assess my progress, I plan to keep a journal. By journaling, I can keep track of my progress, how well I am sticking to my goals, and maybe start some new goals. Strategies I can use are getting my family involved. My daughter is already talking with me about my diet and lack of exercise. If I told them my goals, they would help me achieve them. Also, I would get my husband to start with the goals that I have. He is a great support system, and I think we would both be great in supporting each other and monitoring our success in attaining our goals.
For the long term, I think that once I started to feel better, not only physically, but mentally and spiritually, I would have no trouble maintaining this commitment for the rest of my life. I want to feel better and be happier. I want to be off medication for depression and for sleep. I don’t like taking pills to make me feel better about myself. So, if I can do this and be happier, I won’t have any problems continuing it. Just these past nine weeks, I have started feeling so much better and less stressed about everything.