Diving right into chapter 2, I immediately learned that there are many components that are associated with psychological health. It’s not just about how we think, but it also incorporates how we are feeling and what we do in our daily lives. I learned that the basic elements to psychologically healthy people include: having good feelings about themselves, having respect and compassions towards their peers, and having the ability to meet the demands of life. These are just a few elements to psychologically healthy people. I believe this is a helpful checklist for individuals to evaluate and ask themselves if they are psychologically healthy. Overall, I see myself as a psychologically healthy person, but like most people, I can be hard on myself. When it comes to school, I always want to exceed my own expectations, but when I am not able to accomplish those high expectations I set for myself, I often feel like I failed. For example, I recently took an anatomy quiz and when I got my grade back, I didn’t do too well. The material was dense, there was a lot to it, and I had studied for hours leading up to the quiz, I even made a quizlet for it. I knew the answers when I was studying off the quizlet, so when the day came up to take the quiz, I felt lost, puzzled, and began to panic. I expected to make it out ok, but when my expectations failed, I felt as though I failed. That I wasn’t smart enough, that I didn’t study hard enough, and I began to tear myself apart. I realize that that characteristic about myself is what drives me to be psychologically unhealthy. I need to be mindful, mindful that I’m human, we all make mistakes, we learn from them, and what I learned from the quiz is that the material on the quizzes are more about applying the information, and less about memorizing.
(Donatelle, 2019, p. 26)
Before reading chapter 2, I was unfamiliar with Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. In this pyramid, there are five levels, starting at the bottom are our basic survival needs (water, food, sleep, and sexual expression), the following level is security needs (safety, protection, and shelter), next is social needs (sense of belonging), the fourth level is esteem needs (self- respect, accomplishments, and respect towards others), and finally, the fifth need for self-actualization (self- transcendence). While looking at the pyramid, I noticed that an individual has more survival needs than say esteem needs. This is indicated on the pyramid because the esteem needs were a smaller level in size than survival needs, which took the most space on the pyramid. This perhaps is because it is easier to obtain food and water, but it is a bit more difficult to be able to gain the confidence in self-respect, and the feelings of accomplishments in regards to respecting yourself and others.
(Donatelle, 2019, p. 27)
Lastly, while reading chapter 2, I learned the importance of mindfulness. Mindfulness is having the ability to focus on your thoughts, and most importantly, living fully in the present. While living as a mindful person allows you to observe, process what you are seeing and how you are feeling in each moment with no distractions. Different ways of practicing mindfulness include: meditation, yoga, prayer, and reaching out to others. Mindfulness is also helpful because whenever I feel myself getting stressed out, I often take walks or go to the gym. Focusing on how I am feeling in a particular moment helps me destress. While taking walks, I focus on what is around me, the sounds that I hear, and the air I am breathing.
(Donatelle, 2019, p. 40)
As a full-time student, life can get very busy balancing school, work, family and friends, but I have been practicing mindfulness, which has not only improved my health, but has helped me with reaching my health aspect goal. While using mindfulness when running, it has helped me push past my body aching. As I stride towards reaching my health aspect goal, my mile time was thirteen minutes and fifty-six seconds.
Health Aspect 