Robby Deleon – Self-Help Literature (ENG 3402: Topics in Literature)

How to obtain acceptable physical health.

When it comes to self care, a lot of topics are very important because it’s all about changing a person for the better but of all the self-care topics one of the most important ones, if not, the most important one, is physical health. Physical health is called physical health because it involves improving the physical aspect of the human body, so how a person not only looks physically but feels physically is all reliant on physical health. Because physical health is so noticeable in a person it is very necessary to take good care of, which is why this topic is important.

The 5 major topics hygiene, medical, diet, sleep, and fitness are all very important topics to analyze physical health starting with hygiene. Hygiene is the grooming aspect of physical health. Medical is the healing aspect of physical health and it is taking good care of minor and major illnesses appropriately. Diet is the nutrition aspect of physical health. Sleep is the resting aspect of physical health and in many cases, the easiest one. Lastly is fitness, which can be understood as the hardest aspect of physical health. Fitness is the exercise aspect of physical health and it involves physical activity and keeping your muscle strength up to par along with endurance.

Because these things can be so hard there are many tools out there to help with the process and many professionals to help. For example, David Kirsch who’s a wellness visionary and a qualified professional wrote a book called “The Ultimate New York Body Plan” which gives advice on fitness training. Kirsch also has a book called “The Ultimate New York Diet” which is more focused on how to eat properly. There are also many people who have first hand experiences and would give great advice, for example those who went through weight loss journeys. Becky Brown, writer and health coach is a person who participated in weight loss training and wrote about her experiences in an article online in which she lost over 100 pounds.

Research Presentation

Cover Letter

How to obtain acceptable physical health

Physical Health is one of the many areas of self-care and probably the most noticeable one. The fact that one’s physical health is so noticeable makes it really important, however doing so is easier said than done. Physical health is health involving hygiene, medical, diet, sleep, and fitness so to truly have acceptable physical health, these 5 are completely necessary. Because these 5 areas are essential to obtaining good physical health, I will be researching each topic individually and explaining the importance of each one and how to take full advantage of each area.
Credibility is huge for topics like this because of the advice given so because of that it is necessary to mention those with a lot of credibility to the topic. Personal Trainer and Strength Coach, Joe Dowdell who I’ll reference on his fitness advice along with Wellness Visionary, David Kirsch. Kirsch is not only a professional in the area of physical health, but he has books written on both the area of fitness and the area of dieting which are two major components when it comes to improving your physical health which I’ll be referencing. Another reference I feel like would be very helpful to incorporate is those who practiced physical health a lot simply because they were very unhealthy/out of shape. To be more specific I will look into those who have been on the television show “The Biggest Loser”, aside from the fact that it’s just a show for entertainment, I feel like these people who forced themselves to lose a lot of weight must have information that some fitness trainers don’t even have. The physical health training they put themselves through is definitely worth mentioning.

Lastly, the relationship between self-help and physical health. I want to go in depth about how important physical health is as a self-help topic. It wouldn’t make much sense to just write about HOW to achieve good physical health and not write about WHY we should do this in the first place.

RobbyDeleonPresentation

Self-Help on Physical Health

I was told my last proposal on physical health wasn’t awful, it was just too broad. I thought because it wasn’t specific enough I would have to get rid of one or maybe two of my three areas of physical health and only focus on one but instead I was told to seek further information than what I was planning on doing. So because of this I will make it clear that my new research topic will be “How can you achieve good physical health on your own”. I will explain the relation between self-help and this topic. I will be getting rid of the emphasis on motivation because the role of motivation is obvious when it comes to this topic, so I will mention it as an obstacle, I just won’t make it part of my main prompt. Now I can focus specifically on physical health all while using research articles to support my claims.

My last proposal covered the 3 key points to maintaining physical health so aside from that, it is worth mentioning what makes physical health so useful as a self-help topic. Best selling fitness author, Sean Nalewanyj, explains in a blog he wrote titled “ Are personal trainers worth it”, why he believes most fitness trainers are not worth the time, effort and money. He mentions how the knowledge and credentials a fitness trainer has is not hard for the average person to attain and it would be much more beneficial to educate yourself on these things rather than get help from someone else. Also he says a lot of trainers that have the means to become a fitness trainer aren’t as qualified as the title suggests resulting in them making poor judgement time and time again. This is a good start for the topic on why self-help in this area is necessary in the first place.

Next, in an article titled “How to be your own personal trainer” written by certified health coach, Malia Frey, she explains different ways to get through physical training without the help of a fitness trainer, which is viewed as the most efficient way to go about improving physical health. This article helps look at specific ways to complete physical health training on your own. These tips are similar to the tips mentioned in the last proposal (planning meals, maintaining motivation etc.) but to go more in depth, I need to dig deeper into these ideas.

Beginning with healthy eating, the National Heart, Blood and Lung institute has a web page with information on what exactly it takes to eat healthy. The information consists of food that a person should be eating such as vegetables, fruits, whole grains, and fat-free or low-fat dairy products. The webpage also points out things that should be avoided such as trans fats, sodium, and added sugars. There is also a calories section of this page that explains the importance of calorie intake along with made meal plans for breakfast, lunch and dinner. With this information all that comes next is the scheduling which just comes down to preparation.

The motivation aspect remains the same, Paige Waehner, certified personal trainer, gives her tips on staying motivated when it comes to physical exercise as she mentions multiple different ideas that can keep a person’s motivation up such as discipline. The point of having discipline is so you can make a routine that you get into the habit of doing regardless. Mentally, this routine should already be happening, sort of like when you know you’re going to do something regardless of what happens, because it always happens, it’s just a matter of time and nothing else. There also needs to be a balance. Trying things that can’t be done is where a lot of people go wrong. Sticking to what is within your capabilities is the smartest way to get things done because then the whole routine doesn’t seem like such a drag, in fact, it might seem pretty easy.

There are many more mentioned throughout this article and so much information to be worked with, this proposal has a lot of potential.

Works Cited
Malia Frey, “How to Be Your Own Personal Trainer”, Very Well Fit, November 10, 2020
https://www.verywellfit.com/how-to-be-your-own-personal-trainer-3496019

“Healthy Eating Plan”, National Heart Lung and Blood Institute. Date Accessed, May 4, 2021
https://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/educational/lose_wt/eat/calories.htm

Paige Waehner, “Make Goals to Get More Motivation for Exercising” Very Well Fit, July 24, 2020
https://www.verywellfit.com/getting-motivated-to-exercise-1231391

Self-Motivation For Physical Health

Great health is something we all desire and a huge part of that is our physical health and keeping our body in shape. With good physical health you feel good and you look good. Also to make these exercises work you need to change your diet. On top of that you need to get a good amount of sleep. Now all of this is easier said than done, not eating your favorite foods is a task a lot of people fail and struggle with. Telling yourself while you’re extremely comfortable to go and push your body to uncomfortable limits is a nightmare for some people. Lastly, mixing your schedule around to go to sleep early and wake up on time could be really hard for some people.

The main issue with all of these is the self motivation that comes with the hard work of physical health. Many people hire a trainer and that makes everything much easier, the motivation almost isn’t needed because you have someone to push you. But when you are all alone all you have is yourself to push you and at times it feels almost impossible to my proposal is to cover the self-help topic of motivation specifically for physical health.

There are many articles covering the motivation to succeed in the 3 areas necessary for good physical health. Personal Trainer and fitness writer, Paige Waehner, discusses tips on finding motivation tips for physical exercise in her article called “Get Motivated to Exercise When You’re Off Track”. The National Sleep Foundation, a company of health experts devoted to finding helpful information for sleep, has an article titled “How to Go to Bed Earlier” discussing tips for getting into the habit of going to sleep early. This results in a healthier sleep with not much hassle. Finally, Franziska Spritzler, a qualified health expert in the area of nutrition and dieting, discusses tips for maintaining a healthy diet in the article “14 Simple Ways to Stick to a Healthy Diet”.
I know I broke the physical health portion into 3 groups but it is all one topic, not just help motivating yourself which was my original prompt, but help motivating yourself to obtain great physical health.

Works Cited

Paige Waehner, “Make Goals to Get More Motivation for Exercising” Very Well Fit, July 24, 2020
https://www.verywellfit.com/getting-motivated-to-exercise-1231391

National Sleep Foundation, “How to Finally Go to Bed Earlier-And Feel Refreshed Every Morning” Sleep.org, February 09, 2021
https://www.sleep.org/go-bed-earlier/

Franziska Spritzler, “14 Simple Ways to Stick to a Healthy Diet”, Healthline, April 17, 2019
https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/14-ways-to-stick-to-a-diet

Effectiveness of Self-Help/Importance of Self Motivation

To me, self-help is really important because there are things in this world that are much easier to obtain with the help of another person. Things like this make self-help so valuable because being able to get these sorts of things on your own can save a lot of trouble, time and it may be way more convenient. The way most people go about gaining that self-help information they need to become the independent person they wish to become is by looking into self-help books, videos, resources etc. The only issue with this is how effective these self-help tips are.

Srini Pillay MD, Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, discusses his thoughts on self-help and he explains what he believes makes a self-help resource effective opposed to material that would just be wasting your time. His first point is that a good self-help program would have an approach that has a good success rate. There are many self-help methods that have a high rate of success and finding a program that has one probably means it’s a good program. A way to find this is to look for the program to reference people who have used the program and expressed how well it worked. Another way Pillay says is a good way to tell is to check the credentials of the creator of the program. He says this about seeking self-help in serious areas such as depression or anxiety, “But providing such help is a responsibility that is quite complex, and training gives professionals perspectives that untrained people do not have.”

Arlin Cuncic is an author of self-help material herself and she gives her input on what makes self-help most effective. She emphasizes the idea that to make a self-help program work is that it’s mostly on you and how you approach it. One of her first points is gradual pace which means not jumping into a big change and start with things more manageable and then work your way up to bigger ways to change yourself for the better. She also brings up something I agree with alot and that’s to motivate yourself by setting a goal in mind. The word motivate is important because I feel like motivation is insanely important and getting things done require motivation. Another tip she gives that I like alot is to expect obstacles. I just expressed the importance of motivation and when you expect obstacles your motivation doesn’t drop because you expected it. Cunic says “Staying on track requires identifying the obstacles that you are likely to face and having a plan to deal with them”.

Finally, Elle Kaplan, a self made entrepreneur, discusses the self-help area I feel is very important and that is self motivation. In my opinion it is very easy to do a task when someone gives you reason to do it or even just tells you to do it, but to do it unprovoked is something I feel is harder than it seems. One of Kaplan’s main points is to avoid using a goal as motivation which she says is a common mistake. I didn’t understand this at first because I myself feel as though looking at your future goals is a good way to motivate yourself but Kaplan says all this does is give an excuse to burn yourself out. Kaplan says “they blindly tie it to huge goals that are unattainable and use all of their energy to attempt to power through it all and get it done. In reality, a lot of this leads to burnout and waning willpower”. Another tip Kaplan gives for self motivation is to start small with their goals, achievable goals. This way, they can feel the satisfaction of completing their goals much faster opposed to striving for a long term goal.

Self-help

Meditation

For this upcoming assignment I am actually really curious to see how it will affect me. I never really believed in all that spiritual stuff so that’s probably why I never meditated in the first place but because I have to I am interested in seeing how it will actually affect me. If I’m being honest, after meditating I expect to open my eyes to a brighter and much happier seeming world. Of course it may seem brighter because my eyes were closed for so long but at the same time I expect a feeling of bright happiness to take place. For the first time ever I will continuously practice meditation and if it really does work and I do it properly, my mental state should change drastically.

I looked through the mobile apps, Headspace, , Mindfulness and Insight Timer and decided on Insight Timer. The reason I chose this app was because compared to the other apps it not only had a lot of options for guided meditations which is what I was supposed to be looking for, it was very fast and simple. The other apps didn’t seem to have that big a catalog and it didn’t feel all that simple. The insight app even lets you pick how much time you expect to meditate so you can look through meditations that range around the time of your choice. I already know what i’m going to use for my log and journaling.

The only thing I fear is I hope I don’t lose interest too fast which I tend to do. I can see myself letting 3 minutes pass and thinking to myself “MAN HOW MUCH TIME IS LEFT IM BORED” or “If I stop now no one will be able to tell” or even doing the whole thing and feeling like it was so much of a waste of time I never want to do it again and I struggle to find the motivation to go again. But to avoid this I will not only turn off my phone but I will schedule a time to do it so I have no excuse to tell myself to just do it later.

Class Notes – 4/6

Class began with meditation on “Acceptance” Daily Calm

The goal of the meditation was to stay focused and repeatedly bring ourselves back instead of zoning out.

After meditation we were to write a response regarding our experience and a response to the question “How can you soften resistance for what can’t be changed right now”.

To soften resistance the general answer was to learn to accept no matter how tough it may be and work on a strategy. Everything can be accepted.

HW
Blog post due before next class Thursday, April 8th.
Explain what you expect to come out of the upcoming assignment on meditation due April 27th, the expectations may be worries, hopes or fears. Also pick a meditation program/app and explain why you chose that one along with an explanation to what you evaluated with links(make sure to evaluate at least 3 different apps/programs). It is preferred you do a guided meditation that is at least 10 minutes a day (Longer than that or multiple sessions is encouraged) Keep a log of the experience along with your reflective journaling before and after.

Good apps to explore:
-Incite time
-Head space
-Calm app

Next class we will spend time towards the end of the class discussing the book (The Power of Now). Make sure you have a clear understanding of all the chapters as they will be discussed. Keep in mind while reviewing where the book relates to meditation.

Next class notes – Ajah

Reading Response #6 – The Power Of Now

Have you ever aimed a camera at a screen that’s showing what that camera sees? If you have you know that it results in that screen showing different colors, pure whiteness or just pure blackness. The main point is the screen shows basically nothing and this reminds me of Eckhart Tolle’s idea of “Watching the thinker”. He says it should result in a gap of being completely thoughtless and I found it to be true. If you try to look inside your mind and identify your thoughts, it’s the same as pointing a camera at the projector screen, and monitoring the picture. Tolle says the point of this is to disidentify with the mind and come to the realization that our mind and who we actually are, aren’t one. With this mindset comes the gift of being “conscious” and seeking joy in even the darkest moments and maintaining a natural state of peace.
The title of the book comes from this idea that the past is irrelevant and so is the future, the only thing worth focusing on, is the now. When he explains it, it makes a lot of sense. He says the past is just “the now” that has already happened while the future is not only also “the now” just upcoming, but the future is also reliant on “the now” or the present. He says that we have multiple things we worry about, but if we were to truly appreciate the now, we would realize that all of those worries would go away because they aren’t an issue as of right now.
He is using conversation between him and someone else to get his point across the same way Socrates famously used conversation to get his points across. This helped me understand because the questions almost always made sense and made me wonder what miracle was he going to pull off by answering such a good question. I can’t say I was always following along with what he was saying but there were instances where I felt he had the perfect answer, almost as if he made the question himself just so he could answer it (i’m pretty sure he did do this).
Throughout the text he is explaining what it means to be “conscious” and how to get there despite how difficult it may sound. He gives different examples of things conscious people do and one example that caught my attention was when he says “When you complain, you make yourself into a victim. When you speak out, you are in power. So change the situation by taking action or by speaking out if necessary or possible, leave the situation or accept”(Tolle 56). This reminded me of “The 7 habits of highly effective people” by Steven Covey. The first habit is to be proactive instead of reactive, to be in control so I found that to be cool. This is discussed shortly after the quote but I find the idea of simply “accepting” no matter what happens to be very intriguing. Are there really people who can do this? Another example he makes that I found interesting was when he compared us to a lake. He says “The outer situation of your life and whatever happens there, is the surface of the lake. Sometimes calm, sometimes windy and rough, according to the cycles and seasons. Deep down, however, the lake is always undisturbed”.(Tolle 123). By saying this he’s saying that no matter what happens to us, we are always in control with how we react and able to keep ourselves still and composed, like the deep part of the like.
Overall, I really like this book the only thing I was disappointed in is when I saw we were to read an entire book I expected a book with an interesting story or at least some type of story, so when I realized it was an entire book based on some guy explaining his ideology, I was sort of let down but nonetheless, it wasn’t bad at all.

Robby Deleon – Pandemic Processing

The beginning of the coronavirus lockdown affected a lot of people so much that it’s scary. It’s easily one of the biggest events in history. I always remind myself how weird it is that for some kids, they literally never went inside of a school for their entire school year. Some people struggle to find work because their job isn’t necessary during this pandemic and others deal with mental problems due to the stress of all this. I on the other hand consider myself lucky because as crazy it may sound this pandemic hasn’t affected me all that much. I never left my home for anything in the first place and the things I did leave my house for, I can still leave my house for nowadays. The only major difference is zoom and while I will admit my life hasn’t been affected by this pandemic, there is one thing that came from all this that is really unfortunate. That thing is the fact that I still cannot pass Math1275Co.

I mentioned this in a previous blog post, I believe I’ve failed Math1275Co around 4 times. I have reasonable excuses by the way. The first time I failed, it was my very first time taking the class, with that being said I had no idea what to expect and when the hard part of the class kicked in I was completely caught off guard. The second time I took the class I made the mistake of not having a tutor like I did the first time I took the class and that resulted in me failing again. The third time was the time I was most prepared, I went into the class like I knew exactly what the professor’s words would be. On top of that, I made sure I had a tutor so I got the extra help I lacked the previous semester. I was doing so well, every test I passed, I breezed through all the homework, and every new topic I understood immediately. But with just my luck that was the beginning to the 2020 Spring semester. The semester where everything started.

When the lockdown was announced I wasn’t worried at first, in fact I was relieved, no more waking up early and getting dressed every day. However, about 3 weeks into the zoom courses and I realized that this course wasn’t as easy as it used to be. I found myself being more confused than the other 2 semesters. Eventually, I had to drop the class to avoid the F grade and it was disappointing. Imagine failing a class twice and making the decision to drop it for a third time. Sounds bad right, but not as bad as dropping it for a fourth time because zoom classes are still a thing the following semester. All my other classes went great, it’s just that math is different. You need a more personal approach when you don’t understand.

Aside from me failing math over and over, the pandemic hasn’t been that bad for me. As I said before, I never left my house in the first place so the idea of social distancing wasn’t as hard on me. I didn’t struggle to get my first security job, aside from big gatherings, I don’t really see things that I used to be able to do that I can’t do now. In a way, life never changed for me. If I had to say the worst things about the pandemic, I would say the risk of it affecting my family is always going to be scary and the idea that I could possibly be getting lazier is not comforting at all. But then again, compared to others, these are very minor concerns and that’s why I’m grateful and consider myself lucky.

Robby Deleon Self-Care

Self-Care to me is being both physically and mentally healthy, nothing more and nothing less. Despite how much we as a class have read on it, I still see no other answer. While there may be answers which in some cases may not seem wrong, I just don’t think those answers are necessary unless they give mental and physical health.
To be more specific, when I say physical health, I mean staying away from things that harm your body and that risk causing illnesses and pain along with maintaining a healthy diet. Now when I say mental health I mean doing things that give happiness and satisfaction. With the combination of these two you get someone who always feels great.
I understand that this answer may seem very general but the reason for this is the amount of things that can lead a person to this physical and mental state. Some people may say self-help includes exercise, while others say it’s eating right and another might say it’s simply just not ever getting sick. These all fall under the category of being physically healthy so these are all correct and there is no wrong answer. Same goes for mental state. Meditating, reading, learning, or just relaxing are all things to help the mind, but then again, just because one works doesn’t mean it’s universal. What I mean by this is someone may not find exercising to be as easy or meditating to be as relaxing, so in a way, they are not necessarily correct answers. This is why I used a general response, because the more specific ones aren’t always right.
This weekend I practiced self-help a little more than I always do beginning with physical health. I told myself I would practice physical health in two ways, exercise and eating. Now I’ve stopped exercising for a while and this self-help gave me the motivation to get to it. Every day except Saturday (because it was freezing) I went across the street to a park and ran for as long as I could. Sadly 4 minutes was the longest I could run for, but I started off at 2 so that’s improvement to me. And on Friday and Monday I did push ups before I went to sleep, it wasn’t much but I haven’t exercised in a while and it showed. All I did to eat right was not order takeout which I have a bad habit of doing and I just made the food I had at home.
To practice mental health I told myself I would remember to do all my “To/do list things” which I have a bad habit of forgetting. This includes things like house chores, homework etc. This way, I could relax knowing I’ve done everything I need to do. Believe it or not it felt nice to be able to tell myself I’m not forgetting to do something and it makes relaxing…well, more relaxing.

Author: Robby Deleon