Personal Health Promotion
After reviewing the provided PowerPoints and reading the assigned chapters in our textbook, I preformed an assessment of my own personal health. This paper will outline the places where I have room to improve and suggestions that I gathered from the text to make those needed improvements. The areas examined include nutrition, exercise, stress and self-care. I hope to incorporate these suggestions throughout the school year to achieve my personal health goals and aid my performance in school as well as my quality of life.
Nutritional Intake
When assessing my overall nutritional intake, I first looked at the key recommendations from the 2015-2020 Dietary guidelines and thought about how closely my normal eating habits adhere to those. I found that my eating habits are less than ideal as of late. One area in which I could improve is in variety. While I rarely eat the same things week to week, I also do not incorporate as many different vegetables and fruits as I could. According the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and U.S. Department of Agriculture (2015), it is important to eat a variety of vegetables to get adequate nutrients. I also could use more calcium in my diet. Especially as a woman, I know that calcium is an essential nutrient for bone density but I do not eat enough dairy currently. When it comes to protein and whole grains however, I think my current diet is doing a pretty good job of meeting those requirements. I love seafood (but try to limit the amount of high-level mercury-containing fish such as tuna) and eat a variety of meats, eggs, seeds, and legumes throughout the week. I always purchase whole-grain breads and often have quinoa as a side at dinner.
I then compared my usual diet with the “myplate” guidelines and found that I have room for improvement there as well. Again, at most meals I am not incorporating enough vegetables. The “myplate” guide shows that vegetables should make up 40% of your plate (Hill & Howlett, 2013). I think that I often achieve this at dinner, but my lunch and breakfast do not usually include a lot of fruits and vegetables. I also do not include dairy in all of my meals, as recommended by the “myplate” graphic.
Physical Activity
Overall I would like to incorporate much more physical activity in my routine than I currently do. I find that increasing my activity level stimulates me to eat healthier, concentrate longer, and have more energy throughout my day. Lately I have been failing to include routine physical activity in my day. I do however, park farther away to give myself a brisk walk in the morning which wakes me up and gets my blood flowing. I use to go on runs in the evenings and do at home exercises such as curl-ups, push-ups and planks. I am going to make it a goal to do a few of these exercises each night and to go on a few jogs a week to improve my cardiovascular health and overall strength.
I find the stretch for correcting poor posture most beneficial for me (H & H, 2013). One of my biggest physical issues is poor posture while working, writing and especially while driving. The repeated stress of hunched over posture creates tension in my shoulders and neck, and pain in my lower back. This particular stretching exercise, which involves lengthening the spine, can be done at anytime of the day to help improve my posture over time and prevent injuries in the future.
Managing Stress
I gathered many ideas for managing stress from the Hill and Howlett (2013) section on stress management. The ones that work best for me are meditation and sleep. I have begun trying to add more meditation sessions to my weekly routine, especially while in school. With so much to learn, it is easy for my thoughts to become crowded and frantic. Mediation helps clear my mind of stress-inducing thoughts and refocus my energy on important tasks afterward. I have also always been a big proponent of sleep. I believe it is the best medicine and influences everything from physical health to psychological health. Whenever I do not get enough quality sleep, I am much quicker to react with stress to situations that arise. It is much harder to focus when sleep-deprived which leads to more stress as a result of reduced productivity. Stress can be a major cause of inability to sleep as well. At these times, I find that using a relaxing bedtime routine, giving myself extra wind-down time to fall asleep and making sure my room is at a comfortable temperature are all necessary to achieve a good night’s sleep. People also have differing amounts of sleep that are adequate for them. For me, I find that between 7.5-8.5 hours of sleep is my ideal for feeling rested the next day. My fiancée, on the other hand, feels at his best after only 6-7 hours of sleep. The important thing is to find what works individually and to try to replicate that each night to create a healthy sleep routine.
Self-Care
After reading the section on self-care by Kim Richards in Ulrich (2014), I decided to make goals in each of the six pathways to self-care outlined in the section. For this assignment, I will discuss three of those goals and the suggested advice which I will commit to following for the next month.
My first goal will be related to the physical pathway of self-care. I will commit to the suggestion to drink eight glasses of water a day and take a multivitamin daily. In order to meet these goals over the next month, I will carry my water bottle with me at all times and create hourly goals for the amount of water I should be drinking throughout the day. I tend to forget to drink water during the day and then chug it at night when I realize I am thirsty, but this habit does not provide hydration the way that drinking small amounts throughout the day does. I will also use a weekly pill organizer to remind myself to take my daily multivitamin.
The second goal will fall under the mental pathway. The suggestion I would like to commit to for the next month is to ask for help before becoming overwhelmed. Personally, this will mean asking my fiancée to help takeover household chores and tasks for me on days when I anticipate I will be especially busy with schoolwork and studying. For example, asking him to do the dishes after dinner when I need to get back to studying to keep me from getting off track and stressing about other cleaning and housework. Now that we own our house, I find my mind wandering to home improvement projects that need to be done at times when I need to focus on school. The other day my fiancée took his day off to cross several of those projects off the list and it gave me peace of mind to spend the rest of my day studying instead of dwelling on other things that need to be done. I will commit to making a list of ways in which he can support me while I am in school over the next month.
Finally, I think the emotional and relationship pathway suggestions also warrant attention. One suggestion that falls under both of these pathways is forgiving others and myself in order to release emotional baggage. I like this one because I find that I am often too hard on myself after making mistakes or procrastinating and I need a reminder to let it go and forgive myself. I also notice that in times of stress I sometimes subconsciously take my anxiety out on my fiancée. This may be in the form of nitpicking his behavior or getting too easily offended by something he says. Over the next month I will make a conscious effort to recognize when my reactions are motivated by stress in other parts of my life and to forgive him when he makes mistakes as he so often does for me.
In conclusion, I have many areas to work on in improving my personal health. This exercise has provided me with clear strategies to achieve my personal health goals that I plan to begin implementing immediately. I think that personal health is extremely important in nursing because you cannot truly take care of others until you take care of yourself. One of my favorite sayings relating to taking care of yourself is “you can’t pour from an empty cup”. This is especially important in nursing to prevent burn out and be ensure the safety of patients.