Unit One- Personal Choices

1. Lesson One: Dimensions of Health

Through this lesson, you will learn:

That different well-being factors work in combination and influence each other
That changes in one area of your life can affect your well-being
Possible effects of neglecting or damaging your well-being

Introduction:

Taking care of yourself requires looking after the many different demands of your body and mind to achieve an overall sense of wellness. In this lesson, the readings will help you understand some of the factors involved with well-being.

You will learn some basic information about six factors of well-being: mental, physical, emotional, social, spiritual, and environmental. In this course you will only be examining four areas of well-being. The authors encourage you to consider your spiritual and environmental health independently.

DIMENSIONS OF HEALTH
Your well being is affected by all of the choices you make. In a sense, all of your choices are personal ones. The extent of well-being in each dimension, as well as how these dimensions interact with one another affect your overall well-being.

Spiritual well-being can be one of the most important influences on personal choices and decisions. Beliefs, how you act upon them, and personal ethics are integral to total personal well-being.

For Your Information: Spiritual Health

Spiritual well-being is difficult to define. It means different things to different people. For some people, spiritual health may come by making time for personal reflection. For others, spiritual health may mean improving the quality of life, not only for themselves but also for others. For many, it is the belief in and worship of the religion of their choice. Belief in religion and participation in its ceremonies and practices offer a sense of security, a sense of purpose and direction, clear values and morals, and a sense of not being alone in the world. As well, religious belief can bring a sense of personal fulfillment and meaning to life that increases a person's overall sense of well-being.

The term "spiritual well-being" refers to the nurturing of life and to the things that give life purpose. Spiritual well-being is affected by those things that guide major life decisions, such as decisions about health and well-being.

Social well-being involves the way you relate to others. It is influenced by many factors including how others treat you, how you interpret this, how you relate to others, how you communicate, and how you establish and maintain relationships. The respect you have for others reflects your social well-being.

Physical well-being is often referred to when asking about your health. This dimension of health includes the actual make-up of the body, how it works, and how it is treated by yourself and others. It includes health-related concerns such as diet, exercise, and sleep.

Intellectual well-being involves how you think and learn, the information you gather, and how you choose to use this information. It is influenced by what you know and want to know about yourself, all the other information you know and want to learn, your self-confidence related to learning activities, how you choose to learn more, how you choose to use the things you learn, and how to apply information to decisions and choices.

Emotional well-being involves your personal thoughts and feelings, and the behaviors related to these. Important influences on this well-being include self-image (the way you see yourself), self-esteem (the way you feel about what you see), what you choose to do about what you see and feel, and the respect you have for yourself in relationships.

Environmental well-being involves local and global impacts on your health.

Interrelatedness of Health Dimensions

While it is possible to consider physical, social, psychological, intellectual, spiritual, environmental, cultural and societal factors of well-being, it is important to remember that all of these factors work in combination and influence on another. For example, our feelings about our self can be influenced by the way we view our relationships with other people. Our physical health can be influenced by the knowledge we have about what is healthy for us.

Changes in one factor can alter other factors. An environmental danger can affect our physical well-being. If we strive to change our environment by moving away or eliminating danger, we will likely find our relationships with other people will also change. If society creates laws to forbid the environmental danger, our total well-being may be influenced by that change.

Various factors of well-being can change in importance as issues and concerns arise. One area of life may be of great importance at some times and then seem to fade into the background as a new concern comes to our attention. For example, our relationship with our boss at work may seem less important if our relationships at home become tense. Or we might ignore good care of our body when our life gets really pressured and busy; we may stay up all night cramming for an exam or finishing a tern paper that is due the next day.

Sometimes we only notice that one factor is particularly important when it seems to be missing or not what we would like it to be. For example, we may not think about being healthy until we feel sick. We may not worry about what we do not know until we need some information that we do not have. We may not worry about the relationships we have in life until we feel unhappy in one of them.

Health Factors and You

Health Factors You Cannot Entirely Control:

Heredity
Genetic traits can make you more prone to certain diseases. Find out about your family history.
Environment- Pollution is a health hazard that is difficult to control.
Sex- Some diseases are related to gender. For instance, prostate cancer affects men and ovarian cancer affects women.
Age- As people age, they recover less quickly.

Health Factors You Can Control