More than Broccoli and Treadmills: The Ultimate Health and Wellness Guide Pt. 3

by | Jun 4, 2013 | Self-Care, Wellness Plan, Wellness Tips & Information


By Dr. Donna L. Hamilton, MD, MS

 

In part 1 of this series you learned what being healthy really means. Part 2 taught you the three factors most commonly considered when thinking about health.  This article rounds out the series by looking at two very important but often overlooked factors.

Remember, knowing all the factors helps you decide what path makes sense for you to take a through the health and wellness landscape. Once you have your wellness plan you can get the right resources. Think of them as traveling shoes. After all, a well packed wellness toolkit deserves cute matching shoes, right. Or boots.  Or both, but that’s another article.

Now onto the two often overlooked, under-appreciated, but extremely important health factors:

Social Arena: This extremely important arena can significantly affect health. The social arena gives your life its flavor, personality, and uniqueness. It’s also the arena that often brings the most stress into our lives.  It involves your relationships, support systems, hobbies, habits, money, and employment.

This arena can promote health by bringing balance and satisfaction to your life. Addressing it also can reduce stress and stress related illness.  Paying attention to this arena can also give clues to your risk for unsuspected health problems. For example, if you’re physically fit, eat well, exercise regularly and generally have a positive and happy personality, but are a workaholic without any supportive relationships you probably experience a lot of stress and don’t have a lot of assistance in dealing with it.

You would likely be even happier and more energetic if you had a balanced social arena. You’re also at risk for imbalance in the emotional and mental arenas because you have no social outlets to balance work or emotional support system if challenges arise. Medical research shows that people with social factors like healthy support systems or enjoyable hobbies like volunteering tend to live longer, a major physical arena indicator.

 

Spiritual Arena: This arena helps you make sense out of life and feel connected to something greater than yourself. It deals with your values and life philosophy. For many people, this comes from their religious beliefs, but the spiritual arena is not about religion. It’s about the core beliefs that motivate and inspire you to live your best life and help keep you grounded. In addition to religion, many people find art, nature, or music also helps them feel more spiritually connected.

The spiritual arena can significantly affect your well-being. It helps you get through tragedies. It helps you feel satisfied with your life. A balanced spiritual arena can also help you deal with challenges in any of the other arenas.

For example if someone must deal with cancer (physical arena), a negative self-image (mental arena), depression (emotional arena) or a divorce (social arena), having a strong spiritual arena will assist them in dealing with that challenge. Conversely, someone who has the other four arenas balanced, but an unbalanced spiritual arena, might feel extremely unsatisfied with life or think their life is meaningless. Lacking a sense of purpose can affect lifestyle choices. This then affects physical, mental, and emotional well-being.

Considering all the arenas impacting health can help you become truly healthy. Focusing on the holistic meaning of health can also help you focus on attaining and maintaining a state of wellness, rather than simply focusing on preventing, treating, or curing illness. Since we usually get what we focus on, it’s better to focus on “being healthy,” instead of “not getting sick.”

 

Be well!

Dr. Donna

 

The Ultimate Health and Wellness Guide Dr. Donna Hamilton, MD has a mission to help everyone live the healthy, satisfying lives they’re meant to lead. Dr. Hamilton passionately teaches what being healthy really means and how to do it in a way that fits your unique needs by assessing the entire wellness landscape and appropriately packing your wellness toolkit. A dynamic Holistic Wellness Speaker and wellness luminary, she champions a comprehensive approach to health by addressing mental, emotional, social, spiritual & physical well-being.

Dr. Hamilton-a former board certified pediatrician-now specializes in health optimization. She retired her white coat and stethoscope and now speaks nationally about holistically improving health and well-being.  To book Dr. Hamilton for speaking engagements visit www.ManifestExcellence.com

Donna Hamilton, MD, MS, FAAP
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