Affordable Health Insurance Plan – Stay Healthy
Personal Growth Plan – Addiction Problems and Healthy Eating Program
Sep 13, 2009
While many of the benefits of self care are intuitive or anecdotal, there is much evidence to support including improved self care in an effective personal development plan.
The high costs of health insurance plans are well known and are among the reasons for national attention to health care reform. Possibly the best health plan is to stay healthy through excellent self care. Even the best health insurance plans relegate some costs back to the insured through deductibles, co-pays, and less than one-hundred percent coverage. Staying healthy eliminates many health care costs, reason enough to address good health in a personal development plan.
It isn't all about money, though. Common sense alone should indicate that staying healthy translates to longer life and a higher quality of life.
Readers following the Sample Personal Development Plan will follow this self care guide in week #12. During the week of personal development planning devoted to self care, target plans for healthier mind, body, and emotions.
Eliminate Addiction Problems
Addiction problems, whether alcohol, drug, smoking, or food related, are major contributors to an unhealthy person. Self care involves eliminating unhealthy habits and addictions, replacing them with healthy habits. This can be easier said than done as those who have stopped smoking — for the tenth time — can attest. Researchers have found that most dieters ultimately regain most of the weight they lost.
An established model to guide those making significant lifestyle changes is found in psychologist James Prochaska's Changing for Good (Quill, 2002). The National Cancer Institute has found programs based on Prochaska's six stage model for change are more than twice as effective as standard programs in helping smokers quit for 18 months.
Develop Healthy Eating Habits
The human body runs on the fuel of food. Everything eaten is either digested and utilized by the body or eliminated. The body's digestive process doesn't discriminate between healthy and unhealthy food. It uses everything it can digest, storing what isn't immediately needed as fat.
At the simplest level, healthy eating is eating just enough to produce the calories required for each day's activities. Eating more than required to fuel the day's activities results in added weight. Eating less, of course, results in losing weight.
Beyond the issue of matching calories to the body's needs, include heavy doses of the world's healthiest foods. A straightforward healthy eating plan is to use lots of brightly colored fresh produce and limit packaged products to those containing only one or two ingredients. Read nutritional labels; prepared products with many ingredients tend to be less healthy. Explore examples of healthy eating plans such as this healthy eating program from the Mayo Clinic.
Incorporate an Exercise Plan
Exercise burns calories, which is essential to weight maintenance, especially in developed countries with high availability of plentiful food and modest physical requirements of most jobs.
Exercise also boosts the immune system, enhancing the preventative powers of good foods and healthy eating habits. Match an exercise plan to your age, health, and lifestyle. Even a thirty-minute walk each day will be beneficial.
The Role of Mind and Memory Exercises
Though the exact location of the human mind remains a mystery, scientists do know that the mind can be preserved somewhat and sharpened by exercise, good eating habits, and mental exercises. Mental acuity is maintained and sharpened by continuing to challenge the mind with new ideas, puzzles, discussions, and learning.
Emotional health is often maintained and enhanced by strengthening self esteem, overcoming lingering regrets, anger, and guilt, and having support in the form of people who will listen to emotional problems without judging.
Self Care Guide for Personal Development
Incorporate this self care guide in your personal development program, addressing a healthy mind, body, and emotional state.
 |
 |
