Ep 012: What are the 8 Health Components of the Duke Wheel of Health?
If I told you there were eight components to your health and well-being, could you name what those are? Well, some might seem obvious, but others you might not consider. And in today's episode, I want to unpack the Duke wheel of health.
This eight-part model gives a visual representation and a framework for assessing your health and wellness and seeing a picture of what total health and well-being might look like.
In future episodes, we’ll dive into more detail about each of the 8 parts, but this episode will give you a big-picture overview of all the elements that go into being wholly healthy.
Are you curious about working through an assessment and individual coaching? Book a Discovery Call to learn more about how Health & Wellness coaching can help you break through barriers and plateaus. It’s a free call with no obligation.
Show Transcript
Note: Podcast transcripts are automatically generated and may contain spelling and grammatical errors.
Ep 012: 8 Components of the Wheel of Health
So I want to kick off a series today about the wheel of health and these different components of holistic wellbeing. Now you may have heard me say before that I started out as a group fitness instructor and personal trainer in college.
And while I loved helping people with their physical activity and getting healthier, it was obvious that this was just a small piece of the puzzle, that there was so much more that goes into actually meeting goals for weight loss or fitness. And more importantly than that more goes into living a wholly healthy life. I completed a duke health and wellbeing coach training.
And one of the cornerstones of this duke model for coaching is the wheel of health. Now there's different wellness wheels out there, different models and structures, but what they all have in common is identifying these multiple elements and layers of your wellbeing. So it's not just about eating a healthy diet and doing the exercise, but there's other things that go into your wellbeing And in addition to that, each of these segments can be complex in and of itself.
There's a lot of habits that you could work on within one area, say sleep and rest. And it happens often with my clients that will start thinking that they want to meet one goal, but really after they do an assessment and they look at the wheel of health, they realize they need to focus on another area.
First. And focusing on just one area might take three months. It might take more than that.
But it's really vital to do these assessments and to look at all areas. And then you can see so much more clearly, where are you actually lacking? What actually needs more attention in your life. And when you focus on that one thing, not only will it help to relieve stress overall, but it can sometimes just unravel that twisted, not where you feel like you're stuck and you feel like you can't get out of a rut and you can't establish a new habit. And so I really encourage you.
If you want to talk more about this on an individual level, a personal level, head over to our website, Stephanie C hodges.com/coaching,
and we can set up a free discovery call to just start talking about what areas of health you might like to focus on.
So in this episode, we're not going to get super duper detailed about all of these areas. This is more of an overview because in the coming weeks we're going to take individual episodes. To go a little bit deeper to talk about what each of these areas really looks like and what we can do to take some small steps and establish habits to grow more healthy. Now let's start out with mindful awareness.
This is the underlying key component for everything else that you do. And you may have heard of the term mindfulness. And what does that mean? It's just simply being present in the current moment. And that might sound like a small thing, but truthfully. If you start to think about your entire day and how your thoughts are running in your head. So much of the time. We're thinking about things that happened in the past. We're worrying about things that are going to happen in the future and we're ruminating and we're going into hypothetical scenarios of what could happen or what might happen, or if something happened again, how we would handle it differently.
And this can. Really distract us. It can really stress us out because so much of what happens in our heads, in our minds. And these scripts never actually even happens in real life. And so when you tune into mindful awareness, Uh, it's not just trying to immediately smother those thoughts and. force yourself to only think happy thoughts, but it's to be truly aware of what's happening in your body and truly aware of what's happening in your mind. And to understand where those triggers might be coming from.
And when it comes to things like eating, it's especially important because so often we can eat mindlessly and not only are we not enjoying our food, but we're overeating and we're missing out on that entire experience so a lot of research has been done on mindful awareness training, and it's been shown to improve mental and physical wellness, eating and sleeping habits. Uh, substance abuse, spiritual wellness, relationships, and social wellness, and your overall emotional wellbeing and quality of life.
Mindful awareness can be about formal habits. It can be about things like breathing, exercise and meditation and journaling. But there's also informal mindful awareness habits. That's just simply focusing and being more aware of what you're doing, what you're thinking and how you're doing it throughout the day. So that's an easy takeaway is to just start to be more observant of how often you're present in the moment and how often you're distracted and thinking about something else.
next one to cover is community. A strong community is all about fostering, meaningful, social connections and relationships.
And as you know, we're in a digitally connected world right now, but many people are feeling lonelier than they ever have before. And so having this supportive network is really important and that might include just one to two close friendships, but those are friendships that you can count on in times when you need support.
You also want to have various social outlets groups that you can get together with.
And when you're trying to make a health change, it's really important to surround yourself with people who are like-minded. So that might mean joining a new group or a new club or finding some exercise partners, joining a gym that has a great friendly gym culture. It helps you to reinforce those habits that you're trying to build. And remember too, that relationships change with seasons.
They change over time. People can move or they can just, uh, drift apart. And so this is something you need to be actively investing in and creating those relationships that really are mutually beneficial that are positive. And it also sometimes means setting boundaries and distancing yourself from relationships that are toxic in your life.
So a good takeaway for this is to identify maybe one or two or even three to five relationships that you really value in your life.
It could be family, coworkers, friends, or just people in your community circle. Think about how you can invest in one or two of these relationships in the coming months to make that a stronger connection.
Third, we're going to move on to physical environment. Now physical environment is something that sounds a little bit simple and you might take for granted because it can just be simply the actual health of your environment in terms of being free of allergens, free of toxins, PEs, contaminants, and pollution.
And that might be noise, pollution or air pollution. But sometimes we don't realize if some of these things are lurking. So if you are having health issues like chronic fatigue allergies, a lot of recurring sinus infections or respiratory issues. You might want to check out your home and work environment to make sure that it's a truly clean and healthy environment.
But your physical environment also goes beyond just this basic need.
I think about the idea of having a well-maintained organized. And clutter-free environment. Clutter can be really stifling physically and mentally. And you also want an environment that's engaging to the senses. And so I'm not saying here that you have to go out and have an excuse to totally redecorate your house and spend a thousand bucks on new decor or a bunch of money up at the container store. But what you do want to consider is how your environment is influencing you.
So that might mean taking some time to declutter, get rid of things that you don't need that are no longer serving you. So when you sit down at your desk, um, or you go to bed at night, you feel like you are in a clean and clear environment. And another component of the environment is your schedule.
It's your time environment? It's your routines. And surprisingly. When I have worked with clients, this physical environment piece. And the time and schedule piece are almost always one of the first things that we tackle. Even if they want to work on eating habits and that's usually the case, or maybe some weight loss. We often find that our physical environment has to be in order first, before we can get to those other goals.
All right.
We're almost halfway done. Let's talk next about nutrition and lifestyle. And I'm only going to touch on this briefly because you're probably well aware that nutrition is one of the most important parts of your physical wellbeing.
And not only is it part of your physical wellbeing, but what you eat affects your energy level and your mental health.
We're no stranger to the fact that there are lots of diets out there. There are a lot of really strong opinions about what you should eat or not eat and even strong opinions about whether you should go on a diet or whether we need to totally reframe our mindset around dieting to more of an intuitive eating approach. That's a topic for another day. But when it comes to maintaining a good level of energy and avoiding all of those chronic diseases and things like high cholesterol, high blood pressure. Diabetes that are tied, not only to being overweight, but also to the types of foods we're consuming.
If you're not looking to necessarily go on a full-out diet plan, but you just want to make some little micro adjustments that will help you improve day by day. The first is to aim for three to five servings of vegetables and two servings of fruit and make those be in a variety of bright colors, which means they're full of antioxidants and vitamins.
And. Nutrients that your body needs.
You also the want to focus on eating the right types of fats. Now doesn't necessarily mean you have to eat a fat free diet because fat is actually good for you in moderation in the right amount. But you want to focus on monounsaturated and polyunsaturated and medium chain fatty acids. And those are things you find in like avocados and avocado oil, olive oil, coconut oil. And on the other end, you want to avoid and limit seed oils these are, usually found in processed foods and fast foods.
And these omega six ultra-processed seed oils can be highly inflammatory. So those are things like canola oil, corn, cotton seed, soybean, sunflower, peanut oil.
You want to stay away from those and focus on those other oils and just the naturally occurring fats that you find in whole foods as well.
Another one is to consume protein, rich foods. Daily protein is an essential building block. It also helps you to stay full. And the last one I'm going to leave you with today is to replace processed foods with fiber-rich foods and not include fresh vegetables, whole grains, beans, and legumes. This is so important to your microbiome.
And we did an episode on this I can link to is eating processed foods versus whole foods. If you can just start to make that switch when you're snacking, and when you're choosing what to eat for dinner. And these all go together, right?
So it's fiber, rich foods are going to be your plant-based foods.
Oh, I do need to add one more to this nutrition and that's to drink a minimum of six to eight cups of water a day. All those other beverages, the soft drinks, the alcohol, the sweet coffees. None of that is good for you in the long run.
So up the water and consume those other drinks only in moderation.
Next I want to move on to mental and emotional wellbeing. This cannot be understated. Um, how impactful and important this is for your wellbeing. Prioritizing your mental and emotional health means you're able to understand and manage those thoughts and emotions effectively. And there may be times when that means going to see someone professional for counseling or therapy and getting that additional support, especially when you're going through difficult situations. And anytime you go through a major transition in life, something like having a baby. a marriage change, moving, changing jobs, experiencing. death of mourning loss and grief. All of these situations can trigger things from the past. And rather than just stuff then back down, it's a good time as painful as it is to pull things out, go to someone professional that you can process through with and to find out what are those roots?
What are those triggers? What are those underlying strong emotions? That sometimes come out and you feel like you can't necessarily control them.
And it's not just about having control, but it's about truly understanding why we do what we do and how we can learn and grow from those things that have affected us in the past. And mental health is a big buzzword. I know. But it's something that is a lifelong journey. And there are some professionals like Dr. Caroline Leaf, who talks about mind management and how mind management is an ongoing process in our lives.
We have the ability to think, feel, and choose.
And God has given us the ability to take our thoughts captive. That's what it says in second Corinthians 10, that we should take every thought captive unto Christ. And so that means we're not at the mercy of our thoughts and emotions, just running all over the place and running the show. But we do have the ability to take a hold of our thinking patterns and to examine them and to find what is good and find what needs to be redeemed and reconstructed. And one of the best ways I know for starting to get in touch with your mental and emotional health. Is to start keeping a journal. And it doesn't have to be. Uh, long period of writing every day.
It could be a note app in your phone. It could be there. Lots of really cool. Apps for journals that you can download, or you can just use a simple notebook. But to start to record each day, what is causing you stress? And what are you grateful for? This can really help you to reframe what you're thinking and feeling.
Next up in the wheel of health and talk about fulfillment and purpose. And having a sense of fulfillment and purpose adds meaning to your life. And it could include your career, your occupation, your day job.
And some other health wheels and health models have a segment for occupational wellness, but your fulfillment and purpose is not just about your job for many people. The thing that gives them the most fulfillment could be outside of work. It could be their family, it could be their hobbies, it could be church, it could be volunteering or a passion that you have in life.
And sometimes it's not the best thing to have our 40 hour work week. Be our sole sense of fulfillment and purpose, because when this happens, it's very easy to get out of balance.
It's easy to start overworking and neglecting other areas of priority in your life because you're so passionate about what you do. And as great as it is to have that passion. It's important to remember balance.
Work-life balance is part of your fulfillment and purpose bucket. And also things that will contribute to you intellectually and in your personal development, in your professional development, things that will help you continue to grow.
And so a good takeaway here is to consider where are you getting your sense of fulfillment and purpose in life? Is it from work? Is it from something else? Could it be from something else?
So just think about those things that bring you joy. That maybe create beauty or help to serve others help to make the world a better place. And think about how you're able to currently invest in that and how you might like to invest more.
So our next, so we're on our next to last segment of the wheel of health and that's physical activity and fitness. And physical activity is about moving your body and fitness is what results from that activity and that exercise. The exercise provides a vast number of health benefits. From lowering your cholesterol and blood pressure to, uh, boosting your mental health.
And so again, this is where things start to tie into each other. But exercise is that program planned activity. But physical activity is also about moving throughout the day. We have a tendency in certain jobs in particular, if you're on your computer all day, if you're in meetings all day to be very sedentary.
So when it comes to your formal exercise program, you want to make sure you're including three main areas, which is cardio, respiratory endurance exercise. Things like walking, biking, elliptical, and they can be playing sports. Muscular strength building exercises is the second one, and that can be everything from body weight to dumbbells, to machines in the gym. And then the third component of a well-rounded exercise routine is flexibility and mobility.
And the older you get, the more you truly start to appreciate how important it is to be limber and to be flexible. And for all your joints to be working in a healthy range of motion. But all of that, doesn't have to take a long time and it also can be split up throughout the day. And one of the best ways to just start getting more movement into your life.
Being more active is to check out your smartwatch. If you have one or get a pedometer and start increasing your step count each day, because that will ensure that you're not spending way too much time sitting around and it can be a good reminder to get up and stretch and move around.
So you're not sitting, which will also help your flexibility and mobility. And it's like 80% of people have back problems. So this is a big one to be getting up and moving throughout the day.
And now we have our final component of the wheel of health and that sleep and rest now a good night's sleep. That's obviously really important.
It helps to build your immune system. It helps your brain. Uh, and again, it it's really big for your overall energy and for your mental health to be getting enough sleep. The standard recommendation for adults is seven to nine hours a night. But that means you are actually sleeping when you're in bed.
If you're waking up a lot at night, if you have a really difficult time falling asleep, then there's a lot of things that can go into re calibrating your schedule and making sure you have good sleep hygiene. But beyond sleep. There's also the concept of rest. That's really important in our lives because it's so easy to go nonstop all day long. And so your body needs some time to be doing nothing.
You don't need to be always multitasking, always completing tasks on your to-do list, but making time to actually rest and restore yourself.
So there you have it. That's all eight components. And I know it's a lot of information to throw out. But yet it's still only scratching the surface.
And so, like I said, in these coming weeks, we're going to be diving deeper into these different components of health and also have some bonus ones too. Like we have an upcoming guest who's going to talk about sexual wholeness and sexual health, which is another really important topic.
But in the meantime, I encourage you to go to our show notes and check out the accompanying blog posts that lays this out in detail. And you can also see the visual of this duke wheel of health.
And that's this good time. If you're considering making a change, if you're considering growing in your holistic health, check out our health and wellness coaching, and it can start with just a free discovery call where you can see if this is something that even makes sense for you to pursue right now, and to learn more about what that looks like. Go to stephaniechodges.com/ coaching to get started.
Thank you for joining us for this episode of the Wholly Well Journey podcast. Please be sure to subscribe and you can also head over to whollywelljourney. com to check out the show notes and the whole podcast library. That's also where you'll find information about our health and wellness coaching, which you can participate in online from wherever you are in the world.
Just a reminder and disclaimer that this podcast is for educational and informational purposes only. It is not a substitute for medical advice or professional counseling. Please be sure to consult your doctor before making any changes to your diet or exercise plan or starting to fast. If you're interested in more information about fasting and spiritual disciplines, check out danielfastjourney.com. Thanks for joining us on this journey to becoming wholly well.