TOOLS
- 5 Pillars of Health
- Recipes
- Action
5 PILLARS OF HEALTH
I believe in supporting “The 5-Pillars of Health” to support your overall Health and Wellness. These include; Environmental, Physical, Mental, Emotional, and Spiritual Health and Wellness. These 5-Pillars are inextricably linked. When our pillars, our foundational supports, are out of balance, an environment is created for dis-ease to occur. On the other side, when we cultivate improvements in one pillar, we support growth throughout. Nurse Coaching at Fostering Wellness honors the 5-Pillars equally. Clients determine which pillars to prioritize and set their goals in, based on individual needs and desires. Clients are then guided to set SMART goals within their defined priority pillar, and from there we look at behavior modification to enhance and sustainably obtain these SMART goals.
*Environmental Health:
Environment, in the context of health and wellness, can be defined as; everything that surrounds and individual, physical, social, psychological, cultural, or spiritual characteristics; external or internal features; animate and inanimate objects; climate; seen and unseen vibrations; frequencies, and energy patterns. This is the habitat within which all living systems participate and interact. Our ability to assess our own environment increases our awareness of its impact on our overall health and well-being. My intention is to provide clients with opportunities to consider how their environment affects their wellbeing, identify hazardous exposures, and develop new strategies and choices that lead to better outcomes, for both the client and the planet.
*Physical Health:
Physical health is the well-being of the body and the proper functioning of the organism of individual. It is the body’s ability to perform daily tasks and live comfortably. It considers the condition of your body, in the context of everything from the absence of disease to fitness level.
Physical health is critical for overall well-being, and is affected by lifestyle: diet, level of physical activity, behavior (for instance, smoking), human biology (a person’s genetics and physiology may make it easier or harder to achieve good physical health), and of course is affected by the other 4-pillars, mental, emotion, environmental, and spiritual health. Physical health is so much more than the absence of disease.
*Mental Health:
Mental health is an integral and essential component of health. Mental health is a state of well-being in which an individual realizes his or her own abilities, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and is able to contribute to his or her community. Mental health is fundamental to our collective and individual ability as humans to think, interact with each other, earn a living, and enjoy life. Mental health promotion involves actions that improve psychological well-being cultivate resilience. This may involve creating an environment that supports mental health and identifying resources that can be tapped into for mental health growth. An environment that respects and protects basic civil, political, socio-economic, and cultural rights is fundamental to mental health.
*Emotional Health:
Emotions are responses to the events in our lives. We are living systems that are constantly changing with others and our environment. All things in life effect our emotions, and thus our wellbeing. The expression of the full spectrum of emotions like love, joy, compassion, loving-kindness, guilt, anger, forgiveness, and fear, can give us immediate feedback about our inner state. When we learn to recognize and honor this information, it can provide guidance to a new way of being. When we recognize the value in all types of emotions, we can make more effective, health promoting choices. As we begin to increase our attention to the mind-body-spirit connection, we can focus our attention on emotions that move us forward, toward wholeness and emotional intelligence.
*Spiritual Health:
Spiritual Health is not synonymous with religion. Rather, spirit can be thought of as rooted in our universal need to understand the human experience. Assessing aspects of our spiritual experiences and connections can have a profound impact on our overall perception of the world in which we live. It is, like all other pillars intricately connected to our overall wellbeing. It is a pillar in which exploration and development can be a truly impactful experience.
* As defined by Dossey, Luck, & Schaub, 2015: The international Nurse Coach Association