DAY 23 – BASIC REQUIREMENT: PHYSICAL HEALTH AND PSYCHOLOGICAL WELLNESS

I am a pre-med student who has just spent a day taking a tour of a hospital. In the morning I followed a doctor around who attended to his patients with various types of physical ailments. In the afternoon I was with a psychiatrist who was listening to his patients discuss their personal situations that were problematic and troubling to them.

Every human being lives his or her life within their own body and mind. No one else feels the effects of how one’s cells, tissues and organs are functioning. No one else has personal access to the thoughts and feelings that reside within. Physical and psychological wellness are individually based and completely the inner domain of each person.

At various times in everyone’s life every person has to deal with physical health issues. A simple cold can come and go but there are diseases that take hold within a person’s body that can have a long term effect on that person’s ability to function without pain and discomfort.

Today information is available about what contributes to a healthy and unhealthy body. We know that certain foods enhance the human body to function more optimally and other types of foods can have a detrimental effect. We also know that smoking tobacco and taking drugs can have negative internal ramifications. While a sedentary lifestyle may lead to health problems, exercise has proven beneficial for a healthier body. Since no one knows exactly how their own body’s cells, tissues and organs will progress over time, taking measures to improve one’s health at every stage of life may decrease the likelihood that physical health issues will arise and when something does develop a lifetime proactive approach to health may reduce the severity of the illness.

Human beings also do not want to be burdened by the unwanted. A completely smooth journey throughout life is unrealistic. Something upsetting will happen that may be so unsettling, burdensome and potentially overwhelming that it is difficult to carry on as before. Such situations are psychologically and emotionally taxing.

Think about all of the things that go wrong in life. Arguments or confrontations develop with other people, some of which can cause two people to never again speak to one another. You or your loved one develops an illness that requires time being spent to deal with it. A financial setback occurs where you and your family find yourselves in a position where it is difficult to pay your bills or in the worst case scenario without food or a place to live. Any disruption in life or something that does not develop as you want it to, especially those that are life changing events, takes a toll on a person’s psychological and emotional well-being. Having the psychological makeup to calmly and rationally deal with whatever comes your way will make those situations seem less traumatic to the point where you can carry on with confidence and a belief in yourself that you will be able to remedy the problematic situation.

At the end of the tour I now realize that I have to create the underpinnings for both physical and psychological wellness. If I do not make this an important part of how I go about living my life eventually there is a price to pay for disregarding this key component of a better life.