Unit 9 Project

Holistic/Integral Health 1
Holistic/Integral Health: Running Header







Holistic/Integral Health: My Journey
Tracie Hernandez
HW420-Unit 9 Project
August 8, 2011


Holistic/Integral Health 2

Holistic/Integral Health: My Journey
The American healthcare system is progressively growing and changing creating a new focus for true patient centered care. The focus of both healthcare and patients is moving more and more towards alternatives to conventional medicine focusing on the whole being-body, mind, and spirit and not just flesh, bones, and organs. Healthcare professionals who develop and practice integral health are knowledgeable in the ways of practice and benefits and can then educate, promote, and support patients in their journey in achieving integral health (Dacher, 2006).
My areas of weakness that need to be developed are the spiritual aspect of integral health. Improvement can always be accepted in the physical and psychological health, but I have a solid foundation in these areas, where as the spiritual concept needs development to establish a foundation to build on. As we have gone through this course I have had opportunity to assess my health physically, psychologically, and spiritually during the exercises and readings incorporated in this course. I discovered my physical and psychological areas are developed but are in need of improvement, but my spiritual life needs to be
Holistic/Integral Health 3
developed from the ground up. My strongest area would be psychological with my physical sided coming in next and my spiritual side being dead last. I had never really thought about health in the whole concept before so I never really focused on my health in these terms. Now that I have had this opportunity to see health in this way I can work on my weak area and enhance my stronger areas as well.
In order to improve my integral health improvement in all three areas of physical, psychological, and spiritual would need to be my focus in order for me to benefit from all that I have learned in this course. Goals that I will be setting to achieve improvement in my physical, psychological, and spiritual growth are:
A. Physical-Increasing my walking routine and adding another type of physical weekly exercise.
B. Psychological-Practicing relaxation techniques and relaxing more often during the work week.
C. Spiritual-Incorporating spiritual exercises in my life.
My strategies for these goals are simple and need to be set up and a commitment to achieve these goals needs to be my focus. My strategy for my physical health will be to increase my walking routine from 2 times a week to 3
Holistic/Integral Health 4
times a week and I will be adding a Zumba class on Monday nights starting in September. My strategy for improving my psychological health will be to increase my relaxation time, especially during the week to daily and to practice some of the meditation techniques we have learned about in this course. The Dacher CD will aid me in this goal and in my spiritual goal by adding this practice to my daily relaxation time to not only relax me but also enhance my spiritual side. Setting and achieving these goals I hope will put me on the right path to acquiring integral health.
Setting these goals and achieving them should be easily assessed in 6 months if I stick to my commitment. To assist me in achieving these goals and sticking to my commitment I have developed a calendar/check off with the events so I can keep up and check them off as I have completed each event daily. I have always been a person who found great success in completing task and reaching goals if I have them set up visually and can check each on off upon completion. This gives me not just a reminder of my goals by a sense of accomplishment upon completion. This course has provided with me with a different outlook on health and I have learned many new things that I plan to put to use in my own life as well as promote to others.
Holistic/Integral Health 5

References
Dacher, Elliott, S., (2006). Integral Health: The Path to Human Flourishing.