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 the physical
body is the sole basis of health, common experience supports the validity of a
holistic nature to health. In this
section we will examine six component parts, or dimensions, of health, all
interacting in a synergistic manner allowing us to engage in the wide array of
life experiences.
Physical Dimension
Most of us have a number of
psychological and structural characteristics we can call on to aid us in
accomplishing the wide array of activities that characterize a typical day,
and, on occasion, a not so typical day.
Among these physical characteristics are our body weight, visual
ability, strength, coordination, level of endurance, level of susceptibility to
disease, and powers of recuperation. In
certain situations the physical dimension of health may be the most
important. This almost certainly is why
traditional medicine for centuries has equated health with the design and
operation of the body.
Emotional Dimension
We also possess certain emotional
characteristics that can help us through the demands of daily living. The emotional dimension of health encompasses
our ability to cope with stress, remain flexible, and compromise to resolve
conflict.
For young adults, growth and
development often give rise to emotional vulnerability, which may lead to
feelings of rejection and failure that can reduce productivity and
satisfaction. To some extent we all
affected by feeling states, such as anger, happiness, fear, empathy, guilt,
love, and hate. People who consistently
try to improve their emotional health appear to enjoy life to a much greater
extent than do those who let feelings of vulnerability overwhelm them or block
their creativity.
Social Dimension
A third dimension of health
encompasses social skills and insights. Initially,
family interactions, school experiences, and peer group interactions foster
social skill development, but future social interactions will demand additional
skill development and refinement of already existing skills and insights. In adulthood, including young adulthood, the
composition of the social world changes, principally because of our exposure to
a wider array of people and the expanded roles associated with employment,
parenting, and community involvement.
The social abilities of
nontraditional-age students may already be firmly established. Entering college may encourage them to
develop new social skills that help them socialize with their traditional-age
student colleagues. After being on
campus for a while, nontraditional-age students are often able to interact
comfortably with traditional-age students in such diverse places as the
library, the student center, and the bookstore.
This interaction enhances the social dimension of health for both types
of students.
Intellectual Dimension
The ability to process and act on
information, clarify values and beliefs, and exercise decision-making capacity
ranks among the most important aspects of total health. In fact, for many college-educated persons,
this dimension of health may prove to be the most important and satisfying of
the six. In fact, for all of us, at
least on certain occasions, this will hold true. Our ability to analyze, synthesize,
hypothesize, and then act upon new information enhances the quality of our
lives in multiple ways.
Spiritual Dimension
The fifth dimension of health is
the spiritual dimension. Although
certainly it includes religious beliefs and practices, many young adults would
expand it to encompass more diverse belief systems, including relationships
with other living things, the nature of human behavior, and the need and
willingness to serve others. All are
important components of spiritual health.
Through nurturing the spiritual
dimension of our health, we may develop an expanded perception of the universe
and better define our relationship to all that it contains, including other
people. To achieve growth in the
spiritual dimension of health, many people undertake a serious study of
doctrine associated with established religious groups and will assume
membership in a community of faith. For
others, however, spiritual growth is believed to occur, in the absence of a
theist-based belief system, as they open themselves to new experiences that
involve nature, art, body movement, or stewarding of the environment.
Interestingly, the role of the
spiritual dimension of health was given an increased measure of credence when
studies published in the scientific literature, including a statistical review
of forty-two earlier studies, demonstrated consistently longer life for persons
who regularly participated in religious practices, particularly for women. This was true even factors such as smoking,
alcohol use, and incomes were statistically eliminated. Contradictory to these findings, however, was
a report suggesting that the ability of prescriptive prayer (prayer of
intercession) to enhance healing and extend life could not be supported by
current research due to design flaws in the studies made to date.
Occupational Dimension
A significant contribution made by
the current popular wellness movement is that it defines for many people the
importance of the workplace to their sense of well being. In today’s world, employment and productive
efforts play an increasingly important role in how we perceive ourselves and
how we see the “goodness” of the world in which we live. In addition, the workplace serves as both a
testing ground for and a source of life enhancing skills. In our place of employment we gain not only
financial resources to meet our demands for both necessities and luxuries, but
also an array of useful skills like conflict resolution, experiences in shared
responsibility, and intellectual growth that can be used to facilitate a wide
range of nonemployment-related interactions.
In turn, the workplace is enhanced by the healthfulness of the
individuals who contribute to its endeavors.
Wellness
Expanded perceptions of health are
the basis for wellness. Recall that
episodic health care, preventive medicine, and community health promotion are
directly aligned with concerns over morbidity and mortality, while health
promotion at the individual level is focused on aspects of appearance, weight
management, body composition, and physical performance capabilities. Wellness differs from these kinds of health
care because it virtually has no interest in morbidity and mortality.
Practitioners describe wellness as
a process of extending information, counseling, assessment, and lifestyle
modification strategies, leading to a desirable change in the recipients’
overall lifestyle, or the adoption of a wellness lifestyle. Once adopted, the wellness lifestyle produces
a sense of well-being (also called wellness) that in turn enable recipients to
unlock their full potential
This explanation of how wellness differs from
episodic health care, preventive medicine, and health promotion does, on first
hearing, seem progressive and clearly devoid of interest in morbidity and
mortality concerns. But in practice,
wellness programs are not all that different from other kinds of health
care. Your authors have consistently
noted that wellness programs, as carried out on college campuses, in local
hospital wellness centers, and in corporate settings, routinely transmit
familiar health-related information and engage in the same risk reduction
activities that characterize preventive medicine and health promotion. It is in the final aspect of wellness, the
“unlocking of full potential,” that wellness differs from other concepts of
health. More than the absence of chronic
illness, it involves achieving optimal health across all six of the dimensions
of health discussed in the previous section.
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