How Can You Understand and Manage Your Health Better?

Health  is: "a resource for everyday life, not the objective of living. Health is a positive concept emphasizing social and personal resources, as well as physical capacities." (WHO, 1986).

Understanding wellness and mental health is vital for achieving over-all health and manage illness. The goals of BabySteps-PsychMag is;

• to promote a positive shift in the way people think about health, illness, and healing because achieving and maintaining health is an ongoing process. Shaped by both the evolution of health care knowledge and practices as well as personal strategies and organized interventions for staying healthy known as lifestyle management.

•  to provideactive, passive, and assisted cues to help people observe and adopt personal health strategies. These include personal actions for preventing or minimizing the effects of a disease, usually a chronic condition, through integrative care.

•  to prevent infection and illness, by promoting personal hygiene such as bathing and washing hands with soap; brushing and flossing teeth; storing, preparing and handling food safely; and many others.
•  to  facilitate healthy behaviourioural changes by using the information taken from personal observations of daily living – such as sleep patterns, exercise,behavior, nutritional intake and environmental features that you can apply in personal decisions and actions, as well as clinical decisions and treatment plans. (Robert Wood Johnson Foundation 2008).

YOU AND YOUR HEALTH
Your personal health depends partially on the social structure of your life. The maintenance of strong social relationships, volunteering, and other social activities have been linked to positive mental health and also increased longevity. Harris& Thoresen (2005) carried out a study among American seniors over age 70. They found that frequent volunteering was associated with reduced risk of dying compared with older persons who did not volunteer, regardless of physical health status. 

"Health" as a word comes from the Old English word hale, meaning "wholeness, being whole, sound or well".

The most famous modern definition of health was created during a Preamble to the Constitution of the World Health Organization in 1948; “Health is a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity”  "

For you to be"sound or well" emphasizies snould be placed on your "social and personal resources, as well as physical capacities".  

Therefore, term health is further broken down into two broad aspects. Most people accept that health can be divided into two broad aspects - physical and mental health.

Physical health; For humans, physical health means a good body health, which is healthy because of regular physical activity (exercise), good nutrition, and adequate rest.  As a country's or region's people experience improved nutrition, health care, standards of living and quality of life, their height and weight generally increase. 

Physical well-being is another term for physical health. Physical well-being is defined as something a person can achieve by developing all health-related components of his/her lifestyle. Fitness reflects a person's cardiorespiratory endurance, muscular strength, flexibility, and body composition. Other contributors to physical well-being may include proper nutrition, body weight management, abstaining from drug abuse, avoiding alcohol abuse, responsible sexual behavior (sexual health), hygiene, and 

getting the right amount of sleep.

Physical health can also be separated  into two sections: Structural health - referring to sound bones, muscles, organs etc. That the structures in the body are performing the functions they were made for properly. Structural health is associated with a person's height/weight ratio, their BMI (body mass index), their resting pulse rate (heart rate), and recovery time after doing exercise.

Chemical Health - good chemical health means that the chemicals in the person's body are correct, that tissues contain the right balance of nutrients, etc., and there are no toxic chemicals.

When we inhale or swallow natural and synthetic chemicals; they can also get into our body through skin. In most cases, the body can break these chemicals down or excrete them, so that there is no risk of toxic overload. Some chemicals can harm or destroy cells and tissues, while others may affect genetic material directly, which can increase the risk of developing cancer.

Mental health; According to WHO, mental health is "a state of well-being in which the individual realizes his or her own abilities, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and fruitfully, and is able to make a contribution to his or her community".

Mental health have also been described as people's cognitive and emotional well-being. A person who enjoys good mental health does not have a mental disorder.

Most people also agree that mental health includes the ability to enjoy life, the ability to bounce back from adversity, the ability to achieve balance (moderation), the ability to be flexible and adapt, thability to feel safe and secure, and self-actualization (making the best of what you have). However note it is easier to always explain what mental illness is, rather than mental health.

 This is because most people agree that mental health refers to the "absence of mental illness". For some, this definition is not enough. They argue that if you pick 100 people who do not suffer from any mental disorder or illness that could be diagnosed by a psychiatrist, some people within those 100 will be mentally healthier than others.

Finally, we now have and overview of what health, well-being and mental health is.How then can we know the the factors affecting our health? The next article will feature this. Please feel free to share this information.

References: National Health Service (NHS), UK, The Mayo Clinic, Wikipedia, HHS (Department of Health and Human Services USA), NIH (National Institutes of Health, USA).