ENHANCING PSYCHOLOGICAL HEALTH

Most people have the opportunity to function at an enhanced level of psychological well-being.  This state is often achieved by improving certain skills and abilities, including improving verbal and nonverbal communication, learning to use humor effectively, developing better conflict resolution...

CHARACTERISTICS OF PSYCHOLOGICALLY HEALTHY PEOPLE

Psychological healthy people are not perfect.  They have their share of problems, flaws, and mistakes.  However, it is how they perceive themselves and how they cope with their stress and failures that separates them from unhealthy individuals. Psychologically healthy people have the...

PSYCHOLOGICAL HEALTH

How do you feel about yourself?  When you apply the resources from the multiple dimensions of health in ways that allow you to direct your growth, assess deeply held values, deal effectively with change, and have satisfying relationships with others, you are psychologically healthy. ...

ACHIEVING PSYCHOLOGICAL HEALTH

The terms emotional wellness and psychological health have been used interchangeably to describe how people function in the effective and cognitive realms of their lives.  Psychological health relates to how people express their emotions, cope with stress, adversity, and success,...

WHY MEN DIE YOUNG

The extra longevity of women in our society is well established.  In fact, the difference in life expectancy for male and female infants born today is projected to be 80 years for females, but only 75 for males.  This five-year difference has commonly been attributed to genetic factors.  However, new evidence demonstrates that this discrepancy may be affected more by male behavior...

DEFINITIONS OF HEALTH

By the time they reach college age, most Americans are familiar with the many ways in which health care is provided.  Here are easily recognizable examples, all of which serve to reinforce our traditional definitions of health.  As you will learn, these definitions are centered in the...

KEYS TO LONGER LIVING

Experts generally agree on basic lifestyle characteristics that support greater longevity and, hopefully, a higher quality of life.  Small adjustments that promote this improvement include: ·         Testing your cholesterol level regularly and taking...

Preventive or Prospective Medicine

Simple logic suggests that it takes more sense to prevent illness than to deal with it through episodic health (medical) care.  This philosophy characterizes preventive or prospective medicine.  Unfortunately, however, many physicians say they have little time to practice preventive medicine...

HEALTH PROMOTION

Throughout the United States, YMCA/YWCA – sponsored wellness programs, commercial fitness club, and corporate fitness centers offer risk-reduction programs under the direction of qualified instructors, many of whom are university graduates in disciplines such as exercise science, wellness management,...

Healthy People 2000 and Healthy People 2010

To identify all of the health-related concerns identified by members of the health community would be a monumental undertaking far.  However, in 2003, the institute of medicine released a list of priority health concerns that they believed need particular attention.  Among these priority...

Changing Health- related behavior

Although some health concerns can be successfully addressed collectively though local, state, national, or international efforts such as those just outlined, most are ultimately based on the willingness and ability of persons to change aspects of their own behavior. Why Behavior Change Is Often...

TODAY’S HEALTH CONCERNS

In spite of astonishing progress on many fronts, we continue to face a number of serious health challenges.  Heart disease, cancer, accidents, drug use, and mental illness all are important concerns for each of us, even if we are not directly affected by them.  Also becoming increasingly...

HEALTH: MORE THAN THE ABSENCE OF ILLNESS

What exactly is health?  Is it exactly the absence of disease and illness, as Western medicine has held for centuries or does health embrace other elements we ought to consider now that twenty-first century has begun? Rather routinely national news magazines (and other media) feature articles...

TODAY’S COLLEGE STUDENTS

For many students, college classes are sandwiched in between other obligations-for example a full-time job, parenting, community involvement, even the care of older parents.  Some might be the first members of their families to pursue higher education.  Many students come from economic,...

DEVELOPMENTAL TASKS OF YOUNG ADULTHOOD

Because of most of today’s undergraduate college students range between the age of eighteen and perhaps forty, we will address several areas of growth and development (defined as developmental tasks) that characterize the life of people in this age group.  When people sense that they are making progress...

THE MULTIPLE DIMENSIONS OF HEALTH

Let us introduce a multidimensional concept of health (or holistic health –a requirement for any definition of health that moves beyond the cure/prevention of illness and the postponement of death. Although our modern health care community too frequently acts as if the structure and function of...

A NEW DEFINITION OF HEALTH

The definition that we propose takes into account the differences between what health is for (its role) and what health is (its composition). The Role of Health The role of health in our lives is very similar to the role of a car.  Much as a car (or other vehicle) takes us to places we...