Personal Prescription Paper

Growing up, I was never really concerned about personal health. I always had the

thought of “I am young, everything about me is perfectly fine.” I was always around sports,

mainly basketball and soccer, and I was in organized teams all year round, so I felt that just

because I was staying active that my overall health was very good for my age. As for my eating

habits, however, I made poor decisions. Constantly snacking on sweets and chocolates, no

matter the time of day; eating more desserts than the main dish at restaurants and at home,

always having sugary breakfasts rather than a complete breakfast, and always taking an extra

slice of cake whenever there was one. One thing I never took into account was the genes that I

inherited from my father’s side. I inherited a variety of health issues: High Cholesterol, Diabetes,

Risk of Stroke, Risk of Seizures, High Blood Pressure, Hypertension, and Risk of Obesity and

being overweight. It was around the age of 12-13 years old where my doctor informed me that I

was now Pre-Diabetic, with High Cholesterol Levels along with Hypertension. That trip to the

doctors was a wake up call for me, and since then it has been a tug of war between my

personal and cravings and what I need to do to better myself physically and for my insides. I am

21 years old now (turning 22 this year), and I have a better sense of control and thought of

taking care of myself and practicing healthy living.

Taking a health assessment test online, using Healthy Life Risk Assessment, it asked

me questions about how I carry on with my life, and brought results on what my risk age and my

target age was. My Risk Age is 19.6, which is comparing to other people my age and sex for all

causes of death. My Target Age is 15.9, which is what my risk age could be if I made healthier

choices in my lifestyle. Factors that I believe brought my Risk Age high would be my stress

levels that the assessment questioned me about. For instance, it asked me how confident I feel

with my workload throughout my week with school, work, extra curricular activities, etc. My
answer was fairly confident, due to the fact that I have a lot going on; working two jobs with 40+

hours a week, bills coming up with other expenses along the way, fixing up my car, renovating

my dads house that I got from him, all while taking care of my two puppies with my girlfriend.

Another factor that I feel was a deciding part that raised my risk age was my sleeping habits and

sleeping schedules. With working long hours and putting in extra hours on school and

homework, my sleep schedules vary each week and each day.

One thing to keep in mind when improving or maintaining a healthy lifestyle is there is

always room for learning and improvement. According to Dr. Bill Hettler, co-founder of the

National Wellness Institute (National Wellness Institute, Inc.), it is better to stretch and challenge

our minds with intellectual and creative pursuits than to become self-satisfied and unproductive

(Hettler). To improve is to learn, and one must always be willing to accept humility and be

humble in order to learn something new. One must also understand that there are certain things

that their knowledge may excel, but there are other areas of information where they might not

be familiar about; so I believe one way to improve your current health is to always have the

willingness to learn and never accept complacency and never let oneself plateau. This is a

concept that I have adopted throughout the recent years. Some ways to improve my current

health, I believe, would be to assess areas in my schedule where I can move parts of my day

around, lightening up my weekly work and school load and opening up more time for extra

curricular activities in my life that improves my physical wellness. Another way to improve my

current lifestyle would be to prioritize my agenda day to day, eliminating the feeling of being

overwhelmed with things to do which leads to my stress. My eating habits definitely needs

improvement. I believe cutting out fast food and utilizing meal prepping can save me from

unhealthy options as well as keeping me from spending money. Our diets make up a lot of our

health; we are what we eat as they say. One thing that I definitely should do is make time for
fitness and weightlifting. I am very big on weightlifting, mainly powerlifting, and I believe exercise

implemented into my daily and weekly agenda would definitely improve my current lifestyle. I

believe it is important to sustain a Healthy Lifestyle because it leads to constant positive life

choices. From the moment we wake up in the morning, the smallest choices can make a bigger

impact on how our day will turn out. Many people view health wellness in a physical sense,

when in reality is it much more than that. In “Dimensions of Wellness: Change Your Habits,

Change Your Life”, author Debbie Stoewen states that “Wellness is a holistic integration of

physical, mental, and spiritual well-being, fueling the body, engaging the mind, and nurturing the

spirit (Stoewen). It is important to have balance in your life; physical wellness is just as important

as mental wellness, and excelling in one part bleeds into the next part, and so on and so on.

I have thought of many goals to improve and achieve a Healthy Lifestyle, and three

points stand out to me the most. The first goal of mine that I am trying to achieve would be to

maintain a flexible and successful schedule day to day, week to week. With a jam packed

schedule that I have, I want to be able to control my schedule, rather than my schedule

controlling me. If I am able to maintain a flexible and healthy schedule, my attitude throughout

my days would change drastically; more positive feelings and thoughts, more motivation to

knock out to do lists, and less stress on myself. I want to create schedules for each day, giving

me time for everything I need to get done. Creating To-Do Lists with my errands listed from top

priority will definitely help me feel better and contribute to my healthy wellness and healthy

lifestyle. Achieving this goal would mean a stress-free version of myself. The second goal of

mine would be to implement more time for exercise and athletics in my life. Getting myself to the

gym around 4-5 days a week, including cardio and high intensity workouts, pushing my physical

limits and expecting a better running machine which is my insides. I believe physical exercise

plays an important role not only in physical wellness, but in mental and emotional wellness. If
you work out and you feel better about yourself, you gain more confidence and motivation to

achieve more outside of the gym or field. My strategy to make sure I achieve this goal is by

making sure that I either go to the gym, early morning or late night, or by creating a home

workout for myself to do at least 45 minutes to an hour. Another way to achieve this goal is to

join my friends in pick up games throughout the week whenever I am able to or have some free

time. Other activities such as hiking and taking my dogs on a walk will help me as well. The Last

goal I have that I feel was one of my priorities was to look for jobs that make me feel better and

that I love to do, which will me achieve Occupational Wellness. I am currently an Assistant

Manager at Domino’s, working 4 closing shifts and 1 opening shifts, and also a Stockroom

Manager at Adidas working Monday-Friday 8 Hour Shifts each day. Yet from both jobs, I rarely

find any excitement, mainly due to the fact that it does not revolve or involve my true passions,

which is sports and exercise. I want to achieve this goal by looking for jobs that revolve around

my college major (Kinesiology), and also that I am willing to get out of the bed at 4 A.M for and

also work long hours into the night for. I want to look into jobs such as physical therapy

internships or getting my coaching jobs in soccer back, where I found myself being so

passionate about before in the past. I want to wake up every day and look forward to going into

work, for a job that I want to do, rather than waking up and dreading clocking into jobs that I find

no interest in doing. I want an occupation where I am doing it for the love of it, rather than just

for the money.

Overall, I believe I have the capability to achieve a healthier lifestyle. I need to be more

aware of the genes that I inherit from my father’s side, and take my health very seriously. The

Goals that I set are realistic, within reach, and definitely achievable. With the motivation and

support I find within myself, my girlfriend and my family, I know I can achieve my goals.
 Work Cited Page’

Hettler, Bill “The Six Dimensions of Wellness” 1976. National Wellness Institute. Inc.

https://cdn.ymaws.com/www.nationalwellness.org/resource/resmgr/pdfs/SixDimensionsFactShe

et.pdf

Stoewen, Debbie “Dimensions of Wellness: Change Your Habits, Change Your Life” 2017 Aug.

US National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5508938/