Health
“Health is the greatest of human blessings.” – Hippocrates
We are currently focusing on Health. We break this down into conversations around these 4 groupings:
· Physical
· Mental
· Emotional
· Spiritual
Each of these groups make it simpler to focus on what we can do to improve and what we might be doing that moves us in a negative direction.
Physical
In the physical portion, we talk about how different foods can be good for us and how others aren’t necessarily bad for us, but that we need to moderate how much we take in. Fruit is an obvious better choice instead of potato chips, but finding things that we enjoy to eat is also part of finding health.
We also talk about how important it is to use our bodies once we’ve fueled it. This can be high energy activities, but we also have to remember that low energy activities still have the benefits of moving our bodies. Human beings are made to move. If we aren’t moving this can be a great starting point for improvement.
Sleep is one that we fight as kids and wish we could find more of as adults. Adults are recommended to have around 7-8 hours of sleep each night. Children depending on their age can range from 8-10 hours per night. A few things that are recommended to help with sleep are:
· Regular bedtime
· Less stimulating light and activities closer to bedtime
· Avoid stimulants like caffeine later in the day
· Try and get sunlight shortly after waking up (or happy light in the winter)
Mental
In the mental portion, we talk about things that motivate us or that we are excited about. How do we move from states where we think we are tired or we have thoughts like “I can do that later”. These thoughts aren’t bad, they are actually a great opportunity to ask ourselves “Why am I having these thoughts?”.
We are learning to challenge our thoughts. If I haven’t had a super stressful few days and I’m not sick and I went to bed and got a good amount of sleep, then why would I think I’m tired. Taking this idea and thinking through it may help us really understand that I’m simply not motivated to do the tasks I need to do and I can change my thought and ask myself “What would make this get done and be a lot of fun?” It may be a small treat. Or it may be that if I put some music on that it will help pass the time. Get creative.
We also talk about growth is something that we have to work on. New things that we want to do, learn, and explore takes a mindset that is always looking to grow, even when we my feel timid.
Emotional
In the emotional portion, we talk about our positive and negative emotions. It’s not bad to have negative emotions. Being sad or mad or upset are all normal emotions, but we learn to understand what is causing them. Did we make a decision like not doing a choir and now that we want to go out and play, but we can’t because we have to do the choir? Did I spend money on a cool new item, but now my friends want to go to a concert and I don’t have money for it? Both these examples have different positive and negative emotions, but we learn that sometimes they are because we made choices earlier that impact later choices.
We also talk about how sometime life isn’t fair. We didn’t make a bad decision, but for some reason we aren’t having a great experience with parts of life right now. How do we embrace that? How do we learn to work ourselves out of a negative situation? Our emotions are great sensors that we can use to motivate us out of parts of our live and if we learn the lesson, many times, we can build up a lifestyle that will prevent those problems from coming up again.
Spiritual
In the spiritual portion, we won’t address much, but we do encourage everyone to find out what this means for them. Some of us follow a specific religious group, others have a personal journey they are on, while some getting back in touch with nature does the trick. We don’t know what your spirit needs to improve it’s health, but we do know that it’s important to address and readdress from time to time.