Staying Healthy

WELCOME!

You have probably chosen this Staying Healthy section because you are fortunate enough to not have any symptoms of illness and you are wise enough to realize that there’s room for improvement in your life. AHHA has extensive resources to help you attain a higher level of wellness and improve your quality of life. In this section we will concentrate on those segments of our site that can support your immediate needs.

WHERE ARE YOU RIGHT NOW?

Travis Illness-Wellness Continuum is reprinted with permission, from Wellness Workbook, 3rd edition, by John W. Travis, M.D., and Regina Sara Ryan, Celestial Arts, Berkeley, CA. ©1981, 1988, 2004 www.wellnessworkbook.com

Everyone is somewhere on the Travis Illness-Wellness Continuum. Right now, you are somewhere on the right half. The goal is to move you further toward the right.

The Power of Your Everyday Choices

Achieving optimal health is an ongoing process that is taken one step at a time.

Do you know what impacts the quality of your health?

While you don’t have a lot of control over your heredity and surrounding environment, you do have power over your everyday lifestyle. Understanding that at least half of the quality of your health depends on your choices can be an empowering “ah ha” about what you can do to attain a high degree of wellness.

It’s important to become an active participant in maintaining your health. To help you incorporate this concept into your personal holistic approach we offer you our booklet, Wellness From Within: The First Step. This booklet reminds you that you are in charge, that your daily decisions have major impact, and the importance of setting goals.

Self-Help Tools

The old adage, “An Ounce of Prevention is Worth a Pound of Cure,” has never been more true. This site offers you a range of self-help tools you can use to prevent illness and enhance your wellness.

• The Enhancing Your Level of Wellness category in our Self-Help Articles archives contains information that will help you with your immediate needs. These articles are arranged under a variety of sub-categories. For example, if you need support in making changes, try Dealing With Change. If there is a high level of stress in your life, try Stress Management.

A Holistic Approach

To enhance your level of wellness it is important to address all aspects of who you are and everything that is happening around you. Everything about you and your life is important and deserves to be taken care of. Remember that you are a whole, made up of interrelated parts. Your Physical, Mental, Emotional, and Spiritual aspects depend on one another for well-being. When one is disrupted, the others suffer as well. This concept is referred to as a whole person or holistic approach.

To learn more about this concept and to understand how it can enhance your wellness, you may wish to read one or more of the articles at What is Holistic?

Your Professional Support Team

You may feel that you want to be supported by a healthcare professional who can recommend and evaluate various lifestyle changes and/or preventive programs you may be considering. To help you locate new healthcare professionals to add to your healthcare team, we have compiled a list that offers referral sources. Take advantage of this to make your search easier.

• The Practitioner Referral Sources list is a searchable database of healthcare professional organizations, educational institutions, or marketing services for practitioners. You may wish to start by doing a search for the healing tradition you seek — such as Medical, Homeopathy, or Chiropractic. If you need a medical doctor, you can separate out those referral programs that have at least some MDs by typing “md” in the Keyword search box before hitting the Keyword Search button.

Choosing a new doctor can be daunting. As you begin your search, write down what is most important to you. Is it someone who will listen? Someone with the specific training you need? Someone who will work with you without the use of drugs? Whatever it is you are looking for, writing your needs down, in priority order, will prevent you from getting sidetracked and will help you to be certain the healthcare professional you find can give you what you need. No matter who you have on your team, it is wise to have at least one professional who is trained at the physician level.

For more specific guidelines for selecting a new healthcare professional we offer several articles on How To Find The Right Healthcare Professional For You.

AHHA-YOUR PERSONAL RESOURCE

This special section for those dealing with enhancing your level of wellness has introduced you to the resources in our website we believe will be of most value to you right now. But there is so much more! For an overview of what we have available for you, visit our Sitemap.

Thank you for visiting our website. We hope you will consider it as your personal health resource. To make it easy to return in the future, visit the AHHA Home Page and create a bookmark right now.