Personal Behavior Change Plan

Describe your wellness score for each area of wellness.

I have a low physical wellness score of 40/76 due to consumption of junk foods with large amounts of calories, drinking, smoking, and lack of sleep despite eating healthy and walking for a large part of my work hours. Physical Wellness is not necessarily a focus in my day to day life. I don’t take the time out to workout weekly but I do enjoy eating foods from all the food groups. I thoroughly enjoy eating salads, fruit, and vegetables. However, I eat just as many sweets and processed foods as I do healthy food. The job that I have requires me to have to walk anywhere from 6 to 8 hours during my 8 to sometimes 14-hour shift. This does give me the daily physical activity that I need. Consuming alcohol and tobacco Is not healthy for me at all but it is the coping mechanisms that I currently use daily to deal with stress. I don’t get an ideal amount of sleep as my commute to work and work hours takes up pretty much all of my day. I usually wake up to get ready for work (9am -10am) and then get off so late (between 11pm and sometimes 3 am) that I struggle to get home and not be too tired to do my school work plus get enough sleep.

Social Wellness is not necessarily a focus in my daily life either. However, I do have friends and family that I interact with regularly and am able to express my feelings, thoughts, and emotions to an extent. I have always been the person that my friends and family depend on for support so It makes me feel as if I always have to be strong and not depend on any support from them. Which led to a score of 14/20 but can be improved.

I have an emotional wellness score of 22/32 because I am more of an introvert who likes working issues out alone. Emotional Wellness is something that I work to have balance in as I am able to not let my thoughts out way my emotions. I like to evaluate my emotions and use logic to address my emotions but again this is an area that can be improved.

Intellectual Wellness is something that I focus on as I have a constant interest in learning new things so that I can be a better servant leader. The shortcoming in this area is that I get so overwhelmed or my time is so focused on working that I struggle in trying to balance my occupational wellness with anything else. This gave quite an excellent score of 12/16 but again there is improvement that can be made in this area.

I have a low environmental wellness score of 8/20 since this is the least of my focus as I hardly recycle or protect myself from any ecological danger.

Spiritual Wellness is a big focus in my life. Spirituality and the belief in god or a higher power has been instilled in me growing up and has continued throughout my adulthood. I embrace my spirituality by praying, listening to gospel music, and interacting in church. I would like to attend church more and get involved in more church activities but again I work so much that this hasn’t happened. This has given me an excellent spiritual wellness score of 11/12.

Occupational Wellness is a large focus of my life and it always has been as I love working in the health care field.. However, the focus in this area has been to the point where it affects other areas of my life greatly because I spend so much time and energy towards work. It causes me to lack in balancing work with other parts of my life and things like my intellectual wellness suffer. I have always been satisfied with working in the healthcare field and have always had a passion for it. I enjoy interacting with co-workers and classmates. I also feel like my major will provide me with additional skills and tools to excel more in the healthcare field. This gives a score of 6/8.

Financial Wellness is a large focus of my life as well. I’ve always been able to budget my money very well. The struggle in this area has been in the last two years because I’ve lost two jobs and quit one job. Which has put me in a state of financial struggle during those periods of time. However, I still was able to budget and balance the money that I had saved so that I could maintain my bills until I was able to find another job. This gave me a financial score of 12.

Discuss your three weakest dimensions of wellness.

Have least scores:

Physical- 40/76

Emotional-22/32

Environmental- 8/20

Poor Lifestyle factors:

High-stress levels primarily due to work-related issues lead to a high consumption of alcohol and nicotine as a means of coping with the problems. Daily consumption of fast foods and junk as it`s the most available food around work plus the mere ignorance of what it could bring about in the long run. Being an introvert and own self-belief of the fact that I can deal with anything alone has weakened my emotional wellness. My disregard for recycling and lack of protection against environmental hazards have also contributed to this.

If this dimension is not improved, what chronic disease may be the result? Use a reference to support this relationship.

Being an intensive smoker for a long time can cause lung cancer (Islami et al., 2015). Not only could I develop cancer but I could cause other people to develop cancer as second hand smoke also increases the likelihood of lung disease for others. “[Exposure to second-hand tobacco smoke (SHS) is an established risk factor for non-malignant respiratory disease, cancer, and obstructive pulmonary disease in adulthood]” (Fell et al., 2018).

The three strongest wellness aspects:

I display passion in what I do (occupation-6/8), beliefs (spiritual-11/12), and strong financial management skills (12/16).

Excellent Lifestyle Factors:

I am prayerful to a High Deity, I listen to gospel music, and I attend church services. If I had time, I would go to church even more. I also love my work. It gives me a sense of belonging and the money earned is well-budgeted for with a savings plan implementation.

Improving a weak aspect:

I can reduce my tobacco and alcohol consumption. I can find other ways of managing stress like getting a therapist. I can also substitute junk with more healthy food and a freshwater intake. I can also improve my physical and psychological health by engaging in an actual exercise regimen. "Strong evidence indicates that regular exercise improves psychological well-being in people of all ages. The mental health benefits of regular exercise include reduced risk for anxiety disorders and depression” (Powers & Dodd, 2017, p.8, para. 4).

REFERENCES:

Fell, A. K. M., Svendsen, M. V., Kim, J.-L., Abrahamsen, R., Henneberger, P. K., Torén, K., … Kongerud, J. (2018). Exposure to second-hand tobacco smoke and respiratory symptoms in non-smoking adults: cross-sectional data from the general population of Telemark, Norway. BMC Public Health, 18(1), 843. https://doi-org.proxy-library.ashford.edu/10.1186/s12889-018-5771-4

Islami, F., Torre, L. A., & Jemal, A. (2015). Global trends of lung cancer mortality and smoking prevalence. Translational lung cancer research, 4(4), 327.

Powers, S. K., & Dodd, S. L. (2017). Total fitness & wellness, the Mastering Health edition (7th ed.). Retrieved from https://redshelf.com