Wellness

Emotional Health

Emotional health is a person's ability to express feelings in appropriate ways and to comprehend and understand what feelings are and mean. An emotionally healthy person copes with unpleasant feelings without becoming overwhelmed. People face challenges on a daily basis. Dealing with challenges in an healthy way, by expressing emotions honestly and appropriately, creates emotional health. An emotional healthy person knows that an individual cannot solve all problems alone, and knows where to get help when needed

Environmental Health

Environmental health is a person's ability to keep the environmental surroundings safe and enjoyable. A person's environment extends beyond the home. It also includes the places where the person works, studies, and travels. An environmentally healthy person has access to clean water and air, healthy food, and a clean living space. This person makes an effort to sustain the environment and to learn about and protect against hazards in the environment.

Healthy Behaviors

A healthy behavior is any action or behavior that promotes a dimension of health or prevents disease, illness, or other health problems. One example of a healthy behavior is to make time to see friends and socialize, since relationships are important to social health. Maintaining an active lifestyle is another healthy behavior that is good for physical health. If you went for a walk and picked up trash along the way, you would be increasing your environmental health at the same time by making your surroundings cleaner and more appealing. Examples of healthy behaviors: avoiding harmful habits exercising regularly managing emotions well finding purpose in life having high self-esteem eating well respecting others

Controllable Risk Factors

A controllable risk factor is a risk factor that a person can affect through behavior, attitudes, and activities. Unhealthy behaviors are controllable risk factors. A person can choose whether to participate in these activities. These include factors like sexual activity, drug and alcohol use, smoking cigarettes, poor dietary decisions, and participating in behaviors that can lead to injury. Examples of controllable risk factors: sexual activity drug and alcohol use poor diet injury causing behaviors

Short-Term and Long-Term Effects of Unhealthy Behaviors

It is not always easy to choose to practice healthy behaviors. Unhealthy behaviors might be more appealing. When the negative effects of the behavior are not visible in the short term, people sometimes assume there are no negative consequences. One example of this is smoking cigarettes. Smoking may be appealing to some people in the short term, but it can cause long-term health problems. Some of these problems can be deadly, such as cancer, heart disease, and lung disease. Smokers can also suffer in other ways, such as in their ability to excel in sports.

Mental Health

Mental health is the wellness and health of a person's mind and behaviors. Strong mental health is necessary to tackle the challenging setbacks and difficulties which occur in a person's life. Sometimes, a person who has gone through a very troubling event may even develop a mental illness, like a phobia, depression, or anxiety. A mentally healthy person is free from mental illness, has high self-esteem or positive feelings about oneself, and likes to try new things.

The Dimensions of Health

The six dimensions of health are interrelated. Poor health in any dimension can reduce health in all other dimensions. For example, a person who is physically unhealthy may also suffer from reduced mental and emotional health. The same is true of a person whose health improves in one dimension. This improvement will tend to increase the other areas of the person's health.

Reasons for Beginning Unhealthy Behaviors

There are many reasons people may begin to practice unhealthy behaviors. Some examples include: the behavior provides temporary pleasure the behavior relieves stress the behavior helps the person deal with life challenges, such as depression, illness, or injury the person experiences social pressure to participate in the behavior the behavior does not have obvious short-term negative consequences

Preventative Health Behaviors

A preventative health behavior is an action that is taken for the purpose of preventing future injury, illness, or other health issue. By practicing preventative health behaviors, it is possible to offset the effects of many controllable risk factors. A preventative health behavior can be something as simple as skipping a high calorie dessert after dinner, or can be as involved as adopting a specific diet and exercise regime. Examples of preventative health behaviors: wearing a bike helmet wearing a seatbelt wearing sunscreen reducing consumption of unhealthy foods getting a yearly examination from a doctor washing hands before eating maintaining healthy friendships brushing teeth talking with friends about stressful events

Risk Factors and Health

A risk factor is something that increases a person's likelihood of experiencing injury, disease, or other health problems. Risk factors can decrease a person's likelihood of achieving wellness. Risk factors do not decrease health or wellness on their own. They only increase the chance that a person may develop a health problem. Unhealthy behaviors can be risk factors. Risk factors can also be caused by things that are out of the person's control.

Forming Unhealthy Habits

After a person has begun an unhealthy behavior, it may be difficult to quit. A habit is a behavior that becomes automatic and occurs without needing conscious thought. Many unhealthy behaviors become habits because they cause temporary pleasure or relief of stress. Conditioning is a process in which a behavior is associated with another action or activity, which causes that behavior to be repeated often. A behavior may be conditioned if it is reinforced with pleasurable feelings. For example, if eating junk food is immediately pleasurable and does not require much effort, it can be easy to fall into a pattern of eating too much junk food. Some unhealthy behaviors are physically or mentally addictive, which means they cause the person practicing them to need the behavior.

Addictive Behaviors

An addiction is a compulsive behavior that leads people to physically or mentally crave a substance or activity. Addictions can cause sufferers to lose control of their conscious behavior. Unhealthy habits can become addictions when they involve substances or behaviors that stimulate the pleasure centers of the brain. These pleasure centers release a hormone called dopamine. Drugs, tobacco, alcohol, and sex can all trigger these pleasure centers and lead to addiction. Addiction can lead to dependency, which is a condition in which the body physically relies on the addiction and has a challenging time coping without it. Dependency makes it even more difficult to break a bad habit; when the person with the addiction begins to break the habit, they can go through withdrawals. These withdrawals can cause severe physical pain and psychological distress. Since withdrawals can be reduced by practicing the behavior again, addictions and dependencies can be difficult to break.

Uncontrollable Risk Factors

An uncontrollable risk factor is a risk factor that a person is unable to control. An example of this is heredity, which is the transmission of genes from parents to their children. Genes are the materials that carry hereditary information from parent to their offspring. People cannot change their genes. Genes that people inherit from their parents can make people more susceptible to developing certain illnesses, such as diabetes or cancer. Examples of uncontrollable risk factors: Age - people at certain ages can be more susceptible to certain health problems Heredity - genes inherited from a person's parents can cause certain risk factors Race and ethnicity - some health problems are more common for people of a certain racial or ethnic background Gender - some health problems are more commonly found in men or women

Unhealthy Behaviors

An unhealthy behavior is an action or behavior which is likely to lead to illness, disease, injury, or some other form of harm. These unhealthy behaviors can take many forms and can cause a person's overall wellness to suffer, as it can reduce their dimensional health. Determining the characteristics of unhealthy behaviors and working to eliminate them from your life is a strategy that can lead to better health and a chance to achieve wellness. Examples of unhealthy behaviors: smoking cigarettes excessive use of alcohol poor diet becoming emotionally isolated drug use behavior likely to cause injury, such as unsafe driving unsafe sexual activity

Physical Health

Physical health is how well a person's body functions. Physical health does not necessarily mean a person is athletic or strong, but it does mean that the body functions well. A physically healthy person has the energy to perform the activities of daily life, a better capacity to resist disease, and makes good health choices. In general, a physically healthy person eats nutritious food, gets regular exercise, avoids harmful habits such as smoking, takes precautions to avoid injuries, and regularly gets enough sleep to function well.

Social Health

Social health is the quality of a person's relationships with friends, family, and others. Social health is not a measurement of the number of relationships a person has, but deals instead with the quality of the relationships that a person has. Popularity with many people may not indicate good social health if those relationships involve issues like pressure to do unhealthy or illegal activities or to compromise values and beliefs. A socially healthy person respects others, seeks and lends support, and communicates well.

Spiritual Health

Spiritual health is a person's connectedness with self and others and a person's spiritual direction and purpose. Spiritual health can mean different things to different people. For example, some people practice religion, while others feel at peace with themselves when they volunteer or participate in other selfless activities. A spiritually healthy person lives according to morals, values, and ethics; has a sense of purpose; feels a unity with others; and lives in harmony with the environment.

Wellness

Wellness is a condition that is achieved when a person has optimal health in each of the six dimensions of health. Wellness cannot be achieved until each dimension of health is at its optimal level. Wellness can be a difficult goal to achieve and to maintain. Many people will achieve it at times, but will suffer from some type of ill health at different times. It is helpful to think of wellness as existing on a continuum of health. A continuum is a range from one extreme to another. It includes the entire range of possibilities. On the continuum of a person's state of health, the condition of wellness is at one end. This is when all six dimensions of health have been maximized and the person is at an optimal state of health. On the other end of the continuum is the risk of death, where a person's health has been compromised so much that the person is at risk of dying. Every other possible state exists between those two extremes.