Five Facets of Great Health

Great health requires attention to all the areas that effect health.  Each area of health has a tendency to impact the other areas.  To determine your overall health, evaluate yourself in each of the following areas.

1. Physical
The body, like a machine, was designed to burn fuel and do work. Like all physical things it requires maintenance. Proper physical management demands attention to the following:

• Hydration Water is an essential ingredient in health living. Many recommend drinking half your body weight in ounces each day. For instance, someone who weighed 150 pounds would need to drink 75 ounces of water each day. It is not uncommon for people who do not get enough water to experience fatigue.
• Exercise The body has moving parts because it was designed to move. Many people do not feel good simply because of inactivity. Find something that you enjoy that gets you moving…then enjoy!
• Rest Rest does not mean sleep. Sleep is a subcategory of rest. Much emotional fatigue can be traced to inadequate sleep. Sleep deprivation can have a huge impact on emotional well-being. But sleep is not the only form of rest. Proper rest also requires that you stop your normal activities and do something that recharges your system. Find things that refresh you and practice them on a regular basis. Be careful not to rely too heavily on entertainment, TV and movies, for your rest.
• Proper Nutrition You have heard many times that we need 5 to 9 servings of fresh raw fruits and vegetables each day. The new recommendation is now 9 to 13 servings a day. Most people find this almost impossible to comply with, but that does not stop the body from needing the nutrition those fruits and vegetables contain. Since nutrition is so critical to good health, I often recommend Juice Plus+ to my patients.
• Healthy Thinking I find that this element of great health is often overlooked. You cannot be healthy, either personally or relationally, until you get control of your thinking.

	2. Intellectual We were made to learn. Almost everything about our first 20 years of life is based on learning. Shortly thereafter, many people either lose or slow down their desire to learn. Like muscle tone is lost due to inactivity, mental sharpness can suffer due to inactivity as well. Healthy people with healthy relationships are mentally alert.
	3. Social We were also made for relationships. Social engagement and intimacy is a must for the healthy person. Loneliness, isolation, and boredom often go together. One key to successful relationships, be a giver. Just be careful to give first of yourself. Investing your life in other people carries enormous reward.
	4. Emotional Much of professional counseling is focused on emotional health. We were meant to have emotion. We were never meant to be emotionally driven. Just as a pilot must trust his instruments rather than his feelings when flying in the clouds, so also we cannot rely on our own feelings when navigating through relationships. Feelings are both useful and dangerous. You cannot be healthy until you accept responsibility for your feelings and govern them, rather than allowing them to govern you. Healthy people manage their emotions.
	5. Spiritual It is not uncommon for professional counselors to relegate the spiritual to the church and to clergy. Just as it would not be beneficial for those you accept spiritual counsel from to ignore your emotional well-being, so also it is not helpful for those you are receiving emotional counsel from to ignore your spiritual well-being. When exploring this area with patients I point out that this is not a question of religious affiliation. We are spiritual beings simply by virtue of the fact that we know we will one day die. Every healthy individual has come to terms with their own mortality.