My daughter took a credit class of Lifetime Health in our high school this summer.

 

I thought this class would just discuss body structure, puberty and nutrition etc. but by chance, I find out it covers not only the above-mentioned topics but also mental/emotional health which is as important as the physical and has not been taught when I was in middle school.  

 

I believe my kid is very lucky at such a young age to obtain the knowledge of lifetime health, know how to take care of herself and be aware of that maintaining physical health and keeping spiritual happiness are her own responsibilities.

 

Lifetime Health is meaningful to both of kids and parents.

 

The following are the key components of health I would like to share you.

 

1. “Physical: eating right, getting regular exercise, being at recommended body weight, avoiding drugs & alcohol, free of disease and sickness;
2. Emotional: expressing your emotions in a positive, nondestructive way;
3. Mental: ability to recognize reality and cope with the demands of daily life;
4. Social: the quality of your relationships with friends, family, coworkers and others you are in contact with;
5. Spiritual: maintaining harmonious relationships and having spiritual direction and purpose. Includes living according one’s ethics, morals, and values – a strong belief or ideal;
6. Environmental: keeping your air and water clean, your food safe, and the land around you enjoyable and safe.”

 

Health is the state of well-being in which all the above-mentioned six components are in balance and wellness is the achievement of a person’s best in all six components of health.

 

As we know, there are certain risk factors threatening our health or ruining our wellness. Among these risk factors, some are the uncontrollable such as: age, race, gender and history of disease in the family; some are the controllable, for example: physical activity, dietary etc.

 

Apparently, the uncontrollable factors are beyond your control since they can’t be changed and unfortunately you have to live/deal with them. But the controllable factors can be controlled by your behavior and the best in all six components of health can be achieved by knowledge, healthy lifestyle and positive attitude.

 

Hereby, I would like to focus on knowledge, lifestyle and attitude which are essential for us to take control of our lifetime health.

 

Knowledge

 

I still remembered that I was crying every night in hospital after my baby was born 13 years ago. I did not know why I was so sad. The doctor teased me if I drank too much woo-loon tea when he saw my tired face with puffy eyes in the morning. I told him that I cried all night. He asked me why and I said because I felt so helpless and vulnerable. I gave the birth to my child and I had no confidence to raise her well. He comforted me that everything would be fine and every one had such a worry at the beginning.  When I told my husband, he repeated what the doctor said. I had been in that situation for a while. Nobody was able to help me since everyone thought it was just one kind of typical emotion after childbirth instead of an illness and medical aid needed. 

 

I did not know postpartum until I read an article regarding the famous actress Brooke Shields’ struggling after the child birth 2 years ago. Actually, anxiety, sadness, guilt, low self-esteem, helplessness, short temper and frustration are typical symptoms of postpartum. Back to 13 years ago in Japan, postpartum was not recognized as an illness and not exposed to the public as much as it is in today; internet was not available to every household.  Otherwise, I would have been treated properly and timely and suffered much less.

 

Thanks to high technologies, internet and media, no generations are luckier than us to easily obtain information and knowledge.

 

Personally, researching on internet and reading magazines are the ways to keep me updated with the most current information on health and wellness. My favorite magazines are O magazine, Prevention, Self, Shape, Health, Natural Health, Yoga and Fitness etc. These magazines cover from physical exercise through mental health, give recipe of well-balanced diet, talk about the concerns of relationships and the balance of work and life. I certainly either take notes or make a copy of the pages I am interested in, and later try to see if they work for me.

 

Besides, watching TV, purchasing DVD, taking classes, listening radio and consulting to specialist, family/friends are also channels for us to find the most appropriated combination of dietary and exercise based on our own physical condition or the answer/solution of health concerns on our special situation.

 

Lifestyle

 

My daughter plays golf. One day I accompanied her to see the coach because she wanted to figure out why her balls could not go as far and solid as she expected. The coach let my daughter swing a couple of times and videoed her play. He pointed the computer screen and compared my daughter’s swing with the professionals’ and stated that difference was coming from the setup which includes body posture, ball positioning and club gripping. Thereafter, my daughter focused on the setup and even only 2 weeks later, she hit much further and more solid.

 

From my point of view, the lifestyle is the fundamental to health and wellness just like the setup to golf and I believe even though we make small changes of the way we live, our health condition and wellness status will be improved so much sooner or later.

 

A lifestyle is the way a person lives and it typically reflects an individual's attitudes, values or  worldview and it is a mixture of habits, conventional ways of doing things and reasoned actions.

 

It is true that we are living in a richer world full of competitions at a fast pace. Meantime, we are forced to become busier to meet all kinds of deadlines and demands from outside, and we complain there is no time for us to pay attention to our own needs from inside and have become more stressful and even depressed. A lot of people feel helpless with the situation - before we know it, we become slaves to circumstance since too often we believe our freedom depends on outward conditions or upon other resources and we forget that everything begins within us. Instead of looking outward to others for our happiness, we need to find peace, prosperity, joy, and freedom of spirit within ourselves starting with making changes of our lifestyle.

 

In order to change the lifestyle, we need to adjust our attitude and values first -   What is the most important in our life, what is the purpose of our life etc.

 

Today, we are overwhelmed by so many choices and opportunities. We are so afraid of becoming a “looser” that we can’t afford to miss even one thing for our own and our kids. Frankly speaking, the allure of being perfect and being successful gives us no time and room to breathe and makes us ignore the basic of life – life is a journey to enjoy not a purpose to pursue.

 

Once you have an enjoy-life-journey attitude and you know you have right to choose your own lifestyle, you will make efforts to slow down, start to say “no”, prioritize things-to-do, know sometimes less means more and giving up is to gain more, and make  wiser decisions for your family and yourself.

 

Even though having adjusted attitude and values, you may still feel hard to do it in real life. Because you were so used to the old habit and you won’t feel comfortable immediately with your new routine. But habit can be changed. The changed routine will become your new habit, and you will eventually be feeling comfortable.

 

One of my friends used to go out for lunch with coworkers every day and also ate dinner at restaurant with her husband most of days. While she enjoyed her favorite dishes at different restaurants, the extra pounds started to pack on her body and her husband’s cholesterol rose up. Once day she was shocked at the moment she could not fit into her favorite jeans. She was so skinny that nobody including herself thought she could gain weight. She was panic and called me.

 

After a long discussion with me about physical exercise, emotional health, lifestyle etc., she realized changing her eating habit and doing exercise are not only helping her loose weight and get back to shape but also benefitical for her lifetime health. She felt the urgency to make changes – significantly decreasing frequency of eating out, purposely doing workout or exercise and positively balancing work and life. And the last but not the least, she even succeeded in persuading her husband to start golfing.

 

She confessed the first two-week was very hard because she felt weird when she ate lunch at the office instead of dining out with coworkers. But now she is used to new routine – she really enjoys cooking and eating healthier food at home. Actually, she feels like having more free time than before, since she does not have to spend much time waiting for service in the restaurant, instead, she is able to take a walk during lunch break and is also motivated to do workout in the evening with her husband.

 

Two months later, her weight went down and the jeans fitted her again. The most important is that she never can be healthier and happier than now, so does her husband.

I am very proud of my friend and her husband because they not only have found the best way to take care of themselves but also they are following through. I can see the mind’s power, and the influence of belief, of faith from their efforts.

 

 Attitudes

 

In Chinese old saying, body and mind are united and inseparable (身心合一).  It is impossible for you to feel cheerful when your body is aching; if your heart is sunken, it is hard for you to move briskly.

 

Even though you do own a relatively healthy body now, your body health will be eventually ruined if you are persistently bothered by sadness, anxiety, worry or stress. Therefore, maintaining mental health is as important as physical health.

 

From my perspective, our emotional and mental health is decided by our attitudes.

Attitudes are composed from various forms of judgments and can be positive, negative or neutral views of an "attitude object" i.e. a  person, behavior or event. In our life, we can’t control what happened to us, but we can control how we react by choosing different attitude, especially when we have unexpected problems of any kind. 

 

Obviously, a positive thinking and attitude can improve our health and lead a successful and happy life for us. Another vivid example of my friend proved that thinking and acting positively are learnable and can be practiced by yourself as long as you are willing to make a change of your attitude.

 

Today, my girlfriend is a cheerful and upbeat professional engineer, who was a totally different person compared to a couple of years ago. It took her a long time to realize how critical it was to make her happy by changing attitudes instead of counting on people nearby.

 

I understood the reason that how easily she got frustrated when things did not go well as she expected, how picky she was at food served by her parents, how sad she was when her husband did not pay “enough” attention to her… because she believed that surrounding people should make her happy and she was deserved for that.

 

Surely, every one of us is born to be happy, but we have to remember that happiness is an individual emotion – if you are able to feel it, you will be a happy person, vise verse. So, happiness is decided by your attitude and your ability.

 

Adjusting attitude is basically changing the angles of your thinking, instead of changing what happens to you. If we judge things not only from our own interests, but also for other parties’ benefits, we will become more humble and appreciative, and also there will be much fewer conflicts. Being grateful gives people more room to accept imperfect, be generous and gratitude; and eventually negative thinking will turn into positive attitude.

 

My friend changed her perspectives starting with some small things: instead of complaining the food, she learned to cook and comprehended the uneasiness of preparing food after long-day hard work, she feels more appreciative of her parents cooking for her; instead of getting sad at her husband’s ignorance, she started to talk to her husband and understood his stress, she shows her caring for him and gains more admiration and love from him; instead of waiting for her husband to do chores, she dusted and vacuumed every inch of the house since she considered the cleanup as a physical exercise, she is satisfied at sitting in a neat house and seeing her husband smile … She is truly happy because she is capable of changing her perspectives and being positive.

 

Knowledge is essential, lifestyle is fundamental and attitude is optional – the three elements decide our life quality.

 

I am quoting my favorite author Ardath Rodale’s paragraph to conclude - "True freedom is an inner state of awareness--an inside job--and it is available to everyone. It begins when we take up the reins of responsibility for our own lives."