Spirituality and Medicine

I have worked in the medical field for over twenty years. As a student, I was taught to not get involved with my patients. Why? What is wrong with showing some compassion? Is it going to hurt the patient or is it to protect us from what we might encounter? We are taught that we are to help the patient get better. How can we do this by only dealing with the biological aspect of the patient and not their entire being? I think medicine needs to open their eyes!

Loving Kindness

I have to admit that I did not like this exercise as well as I did the other ones. I think it was because of the voice of the woman. I did not find it very relaxing. I thought that it was annoying. I tried turning my volume down, but that did not help. I also listened to it on three different occasions. I did not get much benefit from the exercise, but I could apply the concepts to an exercise of my own. I understand what I need to do, but I think it would work better if I just followed the steps with some relaxing music on my own. The concept is to bring love and happiness into our minds and also project it towards others. I find this to be very beneficial. I especially believe this would help an individual who has anger towards others. After listening to the audio, I was able to write in my journal about my thoughts. I noticed a warmer feeling in what I wrote. I also noticed that I am beginning to develop a calmer and more loving outlook towards others. I also noticed that things that I once found irritating are becoming more bearable with loving reminders. It helped me this week to see people in a different light. I guess the exercise worked in a way, but I still did not like the woman’s voice.

The second part of this assignment was to describe mental workout. A mental workout is basically a workout for the mind. What this involves is training your mind to grow our psychospiritual life. This involves becoming aware of things that we have hidden in our consciousness. We need to examine our consciousness for these hidden thoughts and take them out and dust them off. Once we find these thoughts, we must examine them to see if they should be discarded. By doing this, it will help us to heal in both our psychological health and also, our spiritual health. This mental workout allows us to clean house. It is suggested that we do this in the morning when our mind is fresh and everything is quiet. I really think that I am probably going to do this in the morning and in the evening at first. I think by clearing my mind at night, it will help me to relax more peacefully. I also think that doing it in the morning will help me to get my day off to a good start. I think eventually, I will only do it once a day, but for right now, I think I need to do it more often.

 P.S. Don't let your kids download music onto your Ipod for you. Right after the audio finished and I was suppose to be in a relaxing state, Usher came on blasting into my ears!

Carol

A New Day!

I have been feeling stressed all weekend and yesterday was no exception. For some reason, this morning I feel like a new person. I still have a ton of stuff to do in a limited amount of time, but I feel so much better. I didn't do anything special. I went to bed after class and I woke up early. It could be that I was sleeping in over the weekend and this created a guilty feeling for me. I really didn't feel guilty, but maybe this was the source of my anxiety? I have no clue!

Needing some relaxation!!!!!

Okay guys, I definitely need to relax. I just watched the Steeler game and my stress level was to the max! My heart is still racing and now I have to try to go to sleep. It is amazing how a game of football can affect our ability to relax and control our emotions. i can't imagine how professional and high level amateur athletes can do it. I would drop the ball without even having to play in the game.

The Crime of the Century - Relaxation Exercise

When I would think of health, I would normally think of my physical health as defining how healthy I was, but now I know it means so much more. When we look at our overall health, we must also remember to look at not only our physical health, but also our spiritual and psychological health as well. The only way we can determine this is by looking at these three aspects of our well being.

When I reflect on my physical health, I would probably rate this area of my well being as five. Although I do not have any health problems at the present time, I think I need to improve my physical health in several areas. The first area I would improve is with physical exercise. Currently, I do not get enough exercise in my daily life. The reason for this is that I usually spend most of my free time doing homework. It has been especially hard this semester because I have been traveling quite extensively. I used to exercise regular, but I had two stress fractures in my foot and this caused me to get out of the habit. I need to start my routine again, but I keep putting it off until I finish school in four months. Hopefully, I will find some time to do it between now and then.

When I look at my spiritual health, I would probably rate this area as being a six. Although I am seriously devoted to my religious beliefs, I tend to forget about them at times. I normally can’t contribute to volunteer work at my local church because I am never home. I also feel that sometimes I don’t always think and act in a spiritual way. I normally try to do this, but at times I feel that I could do better in this area. I know that there must be some way for me to contribute and be more conscientious of it. I think I must start concentrating on doing so.

When I reflect on my psychological well being, I would probably rate this area as a seven. For the most part, I feel great about my psychological well being. There are times though that I do feel down and/or lonely. I use to have more of a problem with this before I changed my job. Now, I love what I do and I also feel very rewarded by helping others with my work. It can be stressful at times, but my company tries to help to make my life more pleasant when I am away. I just got done spending three weeks in Australia and New Zealand. I stayed in fabulous hotels, ate and drank great food and wine, and they kept me entertained, but I still got homesick. I missed my family and my dog.

I think my goal for my physical well being would be to start to exercise on a regular basis. This will be hard for me, but I need to do it. I also need to begin to realize that physical activity will also help me in other areas of my life. For my spiritual well being, I think my goal is to take my religion with me. What I mean by this is that I need to begin to think about it when I am away from my home and family. For my psychological well being, I think I need to find ways to stay connected more with my family and I also need to acknowledge my feelings more to them.

To implement these changes into my “new” life, I will begin with starting an exercise program. I will set goals to at least have some form of exercise in my day. This may mean taking a walk after dinner or doing some Pilates in my hotel room. I also think this will help me with my psychological well being. I also will have a goal to read and meditate on at least one scripture verse per day. I think this will be a great way to end my hectic days. For my psychological well being, I think I will set a goal to use some relaxation techniques that we have been studying in class. This will help me to reconnect with my being.

The relaxation exercise “Crime of the Century” that we had to do for this unit was quite beneficial to me. I can’t believe how relaxing it was for me. I actually did the exercise three times because I felt so much better after I had done it the first time. I was on a 13 hour flight from Auckland to LA. I was seated beside a group of exchange students. They were very excited to be traveling to the US, but all I wanted to do was sleep! The relaxation exercise helped me to do this. I did it a second time when I got home. Although I was extremely tired, my mind and body was still on New Zealand time. When I tried to go to sleep, I could not because it was 7 am for my body, but the clock said it was 1 am here. I did the exercise and I fell fast asleep. I did it again today because I felt stressed with the amount of work I had to do today. As you can see by this very long post, it worked. I have renewed my energy level!!

Stress and Relaxation on a long flight

I have a long flight tomorrow night. I am leaving Auckland, NZ and going to Boston, MA. It will actually take me almost two days (due to the international dateline) to get to Boston. I think the methods I will use on the flight to relax and destress are the mp3 we had for our class exercise for this unit and some soothing jazz music. Anybody have any other ideas?????

Journey on Relaxation

Hi Everyone,

I just did an amazing exercise on relaxation. It was called the Journey on relaxation. The tape talks about how we can change the areas of where our blood flows in our bodies when we relax. Normally, the body's blood is located in the central region of our bodies. Through the use of visualizing the blood flowing throughout other areas of our body, we can direct the blood to areas of where we need to relax. At first, I thought this was just hocus pocus. I didn't believe it would work. Within a few minutes of listening to the tape, I began to feel the blood moving to different regions of my body. Before I started, my shoulders were tense from traveling. I was hoping this would help to relieve the tightness, but I was sceptic. I can honestly say that the tape has relieved my muscle tension and after 15 minutes, I feel liked I have just slept for 12 hours straight. I feel renewed and refreshed. I would have never believed this could happen! If you have never tried doing this, you must! It really works.

Welcome!

HI Everyone,

Welcome to my Healthier U blog! My name is Carol and I have created this blog as a part of a health and wellness course that I am currently taking in college.