It has become fashionable to talk about the health problem everywhere: in the media, on television, in educational institutions. Many people really understand and accept this value, but what is traditionally invested in this concept - health or, as it is customary to say today, individual human health? What is his physical and spiritual essence? It is worthwhile to understand whether we generally correctly define the concept of “individual health” for ourselves.
Public and individual health. What's the Difference?
The concept of public health is quite broad and includes the concept of the well-being and welfare of society. The state of the psychological climate of society depends on what indicator the index of health of society has. Sometimes people can hear the definitions of “sick society”, “infected society”, “dysfunctional climate of the collective” - these phrases directly reflect the state and problems of functioning of a certain collective or its part, but not an individual member of this collective. The concept of individual health is distinguished by specificity and substantive attribution to a specific person, has several components, primarily, such as spiritual and physical health.
Without considering all components, the concept will be incomplete. In this regard, this concept is characterized as a positive state of an individual personality, in harmony between all components of the concept of individual health: its physical, spiritual and social nature.
Physical well-being, its place in the integrated health system
Emotional comfort of a person directly depends on physical comfort. In the narrow sense, the concept of physical health means the absence of diseases and somatic disorders of the body. In a broader sense, physical health is provided by motor tone, rational nutrition, hardening and cleansing of the body, a combination of mental and physical labor with the ability to relax, excluding the use of various psychoactive substances.
A person may not have a history of diseases, pathologies of systems and organs, but the general tone of the body is significantly reduced, sleep is disturbed, mental activity is unproductive. This, first of all, indicates that the physical and spiritual health of a person is in disharmony, which will gradually lead to the emergence of psychosomatic complications and subsequently to diseases already at the physical level.
Factors affecting the physical health of an individual
It is believed that the state of physical health of a person directly depends on the factor of heredity. A genetic predisposition to certain diseases leads to constitutional weakening of specific organs, which eventually becomes the cause of the development of pathologies. The next, no less important factor is the person’s lifestyle, the presence of bad habits, the level of awareness of the factors harmful to human health. A person provokes many diseases in himself, neglecting the rules of a healthy lifestyle and succumbing to temptations and temptations. In this regard, there is a clear relationship between the concepts of spiritual and physical health.
Spiritual health
It is customary to understand the concept of the spiritual component of individual health as a person’s ability to cope with the difficult circumstances of life, while maintaining an adequate behavior model and optimal emotional background. Spiritual health is ensured by the process of thinking, the knowledge of the world around and the correct orientation in it. A person can achieve the perfection of spiritual health:
- learning to live in harmony with himself and with the world at the same time;
- learning to predict and model life situations;
- having formed the style of your own response.
The spiritual and physical health of a person, being in close interconnection, jointly affects the indicator of general well-being: a disorder of spiritual health entails a deterioration in physical indicators and vice versa.
Factors that form the spiritual component of human health
Not everyone can understand and follow a healthy lifestyle : many, knowing the rules, nevertheless prefer to live without rules. Therefore, the first and main factor affecting spiritual health is the attitude towards a healthy lifestyle. A person is inclined to repeat those types of behavior that bring pleasure, therefore it can be difficult to abandon some eating habits, bad stereotypes. Naturally, the choice in favor of a healthy lifestyle requires a high level of understanding and interest and directly depends on the individual lifestyle.
An equally important factor when choosing a lifestyle is the environment, which demonstrates different models of existence and forms stable stereotypes of behavior among individual members. The environment, as you know, directly affects individual health, its physical and spiritual essence depend on the level of motivation to follow the rules of a healthy lifestyle.
Social health or ability to live in society
The concept of social health refers to a person’s ability to adapt to natural and social habitats. It is achieved by the ability to anticipate the occurrence of threatening and non-standard situations, assess their possible consequences, make an informed decision and act in accordance with their capabilities. The concept of social adaptation includes a person’s full adaptability to the conditions of the collective. The physical, social, and spiritual health of each member of society is the collective social well-being. In a healthy society, non-standard situations arise much less frequently and are usually of a natural nature.
Factors Affecting Social Health
An important social factor is the state of the environment in which a person lives. Contamination of natural resources leads to an increase in the stress background of the body, physical disturbances in the human condition, and a decrease in the emotional background. An equally important factor is the availability of quality medical care, which significantly reduces the risk of psychosomatic diseases and complications in people. Against this background, the level of physical well-being, emotional stress significantly increases or decreases, the spiritual component of health suffers. Spiritual and physical health in combination with social health makes up the individual health of an individual. Moreover, all three components are equally significant and complementary.
Health as a core value
Understanding and awareness of health as the main value in the modern world is not given to everyone. Most often, a person brings to the forefront a career, material wealth, prestige in society, forgetting about health and inner harmony. Only after losing health, people begin to understand its value, but recovering what is lost is not easy, and sometimes impossible.
The modern parable of a rich man tells of how a young businessman saved up a huge fortune and lived only glad of profit and money. Once, the Angel of Death came for him and ordered him to gather. The businessman asked to give him a little time, because he did not have time for the main thing in life, but the Angel was implacable. Then the young man decided to buy a little time and offered a million, then two, then his whole fortune in a few days of his life. It was not possible to buy life, since money has no value in the other world, a successful businessman went after the Angel, not completing the main thing in his life. Individual health, its physical, spiritual and social essence are in harmony when a person correctly prioritizes and follows them.
Harmoniously developed personality - the key to health?
Given that the three components of individual health interact and complement each other, it can be argued that the key to human health will be internal and external harmony. Individual health of a person, his physical and spiritual essence cannot be perfect without social well-being, in turn, a person with a broken physical or spiritual beginning cannot be socially adapted. A healthy lifestyle, proper nutrition, emotional comfort, a positive psychological attitude, proper prioritization are the key to a harmoniously developed personality with perfect physical, spiritual, and social health. It’s hard to find such a person now. But it’s in your hands to become one.