Psychological health entails the study of how physical health affects an individual. Like most broad topics, psychological health has been divided into various categories. Psychological health looks at human, physical health and the factors affecting this. These factors include our environment, how we process information, what careers we choose, and family dynamics, what troubles us and so on. Health psychology holds that people’s justification concerning psychological medical care is affected when family life problems, daily habits and careers have decreased psychological welfare and physical health.
This science has brought about hope for being able to change your life to being vibrant and healthy. Through necessary guidance and professional assistance, one is able to unlock their emotional secrets also their brain and body. Illnesses in human beings can result from biological, psychological or the environment facets. This is why the human body is understood as being extraordinary and complex.
Drawing from this understanding, it means that your personal and professional goals are affected by psychological functions. These are the factors to be discussed in this paper including the general aspect of health psychology.
In order to understand health psychology different researches will be analyzed in this paper. Studies like the correlation between physical illness and the emotional physical condition, physical health and genetics and the bio-psycho-social will be discussed.
Bio-psycho-social model applicable to health psychology
The bio-psycho-social model is all about studying individual human behavior as the major contributing factor to social health. These contributing factors include habits like alcohol drinking, smoking and eating junk food, financial problems, stress from work and general social life. These have been found to affect an individual’s professional and personal goals. Medical professionals and especially psychologists will keep this in mind when they are trying to understand you. These factors affect your general physical health either indirectly or directly (Straub, 2007).
Psychological health has gained more significance in today’s society. The global economic crisis has brought about a lot of stress and depression among members of the society. People are forced to work too hard for very little pay in order to survive the harsh economic times. Job insecurity has made people to be more stressed and those who lose their jobs are stresses because they have to find a way to provide for their families. These are some of the issues causing a deterioration of people’s psychological health.
Stress is obviously one of the contributing factors to the wellbeing of an individual’s psychological health. As human beings, we are programmed to want to achieve our aspirations in our given environment. It is an instinct. Stress is complex. Whenever you are at risk of danger, your brain will send a message to your body regardless of whether the danger is real or just perceived. The chemical adrenaline is the produced by the body to help you deal with the imminent hazard. This response, which is referred to as “fight or flight”, is essential for survival and only lasts for a short duration of time. Stress therefore results from the process of the individual trying to cope with their instincts (Parzefall and Hakanen, 2010, p.56).
Stress presents itself in different forms in different people. Some will have continuous unexplained fatigue, some experience lower back pains, headaches, muscle aches and even high blood pressure. It is therefore essential to know how different people will identify and respond to stress and how this affects their behavior. If no control is applied, the professional and personal goals of an individual can be negatively affected adversely.
Actually, it is popular belief that there is no connection between physical health and the psychological makeup. These two are extremely dependent on each other (Straub, 2007). Family problems and financial difficulties can make it extremely difficult for you to perform normal physical activity. Psychological health should therefore get adequate attention since it greatly affects the total wholesome wellbeing of an individual (Wiger, 2007, p.63).
People therefore need to develop a system of coping with all aspects in life and not just focusing on one. This way, people will leave stress free healthy lives. Living this way will enable one to avoid some stress related illnesses like high blood pressure. Not only believing but also applying of these facts will improve your life’s quality (Parzefall and hakanen, 2010).
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Most people do not like it when they feel like psychologists are thinking they are mad or having a low intellect. Some professionals do not listen keenly to their patients; brush aside any complaints of pain in an attempt to convince them that the problem is in fact non-existent, and part of their own imagination.
Research has actually revealed connection between the pain on your body and the status of the brain. Even if the physical illness cannot be proven at that exact time of the examination, they will eventually show up. Illness can never be imagined and those who are convinced to believe otherwise get problems that are more psychological. This is when the professional and personal goals of people crumble down and they may face a psychological breakdown (Skyes, 2010).
Looking at psychological health from a bio-psycho-social perspective
An individual’s illness is caused by a variety of causative factors and so you should not concentrate on just one. From a “mind-body” perspective, we appreciate that psychological, psychological and social sources all play a part in determining susceptibility to diseases and health.
Various factors need to be put into consideration when you are trying to explain disease and health:
All the above factors all lead to some behavior. The behavior is involuntary and comes based on the presence of the three factors. Behavior could be insomnia; high heart beat rate, breathlessness or headaches (Wiger, 2007, p.25). These behaviors in the end affect the professional and personal goals of the individual. All these are biological events made possible by human anatomy and biological functions. Health psychology is the study of these aspects that influence disease and health (Luthans, Lebsack, & Lebsack, 2008).
Our genes are the main source of our biological structure and determines whether we will have normal and healthy behaviors or otherwise. For example, alcoholism has been found to run in certain families. This only means that although alcoholism has not been linked to any specific gene, the problem is genetic. Individuals who enjoy alcohol consumption a lot and face just minor hangovers after are more likely to drink more. This is normally linked to particular contexts where they find themselves drinking (Dolbier, Soderstrom & Steinhardt, 2001).
Another good example is how people can be susceptible to certain illnesses mostly considered health related based on how they react to stressful situations daily. This of course is in consideration to other factors in their surroundings.
The psychological perspective
Psychology bases all its concepts on the premise that illnesses and health are a result of psychological influences. For example, an individual can be faced with an unfavorable situation. Depending on how the society perceived the gravity of the situation, the individual can get stressed or not. When the situation is too stressful, the individual can get physically unwell.
Research shows that no matter whether the perceived magnitude of stress a certain situation brings is accurate or not, an individual will still develop similar stress related symptoms. By replaying the perceived magnitude of the expected stress levels, the individual puts themselves at risk of acquiring certain illnesses. These health conditions will affect the person’s learning, attention, thinking, motivation, emotions, perceptions, memory and other psychologically important topics. These are what determine the way an individual performs and acts and are referred to as the characteristics of the human behavior (Christesen, 2004, p.45).
Amazingly, a patient’s attitude towards a certain kind of treatment determines its effectiveness. Therefore, psychological factors contribute greatly when treating chronic diseases. For example, believing that a certain mode of medication will bring you very adverse side effects will stress the body causing the symptoms of your illness to worsen. This tension and anxiety will have to be controlled through psychological intervention. This is the only way the negative reaction to that particular mode of treatment can be controlled.
This brings us back to where we started. The patient’s attitude towards the mode of treatment also affects their professional and personal goals. For example, when the individual is discouraged and they are not seeing the possibility of pulling through the illness, they cause tension in their body. The tension they then fee in their body confirms to them that they are growing worse. Eventually, their greatest fears may actually come true.
Being optimistic enable one to take things easier and be able to come up with hopeful aspirations, ambitions and goals.
The study of health psychology is therefore extremely significant in understanding the general health of the human body its effects on professional and personal goals. When an individual is not psychologically, well he becomes tense and unable to do physical activities they would normally do. They become unhappy and disillusioned about the future. The individual finds himself in a quagmire unable to get out of that state of depression and change their unhealthy behaviors.
People are advised to seek professional help from health psychologists when they get to this point. Since the medical professionals are able to understand the concepts of health psychology, they will be able to investigate and identify the root problem of the person’s current state of psychological breakdown. In their analysis, the psychologist will consider the physical, psychological and behavioral patterns in order to make a diagnosis.
Although some human behaviors are inherited from our parents, others are developed in the mind. Understanding health psychology will help people to be able to control their minds in order to ensure they are in the right state for a healthy body and also to be able to meet their professional and personal goals. This entails looking at the positive aspect in every bad situation in order to avoid expanding the magnitude of issues and developing stress. Being able to handle the pressures of life in a healthy manner will mean that the individual will lead a healthy and successful life.
Christensen, A. J. (2004). Encyclopedia of health psychology. New York, NY: Kluwer Academic.
Dolbier, C. L., Soderstrom, M., & Steinhardt, M. A. (2001). The relationships between self-leadership and enhanced psychological, health, and work outcomes. The Journal of Psychology, 135(5), 469-85.