Wellness & Holistic Health Management

How well are you?

When someone asks, How do you do?", we may not think even for a moment and say all fine. 

Later, when we think about what we said then we may realize that things are not all that well. Wellness, if we seriously look into its various aspects of ourselves, then we may see that it is not just one aspect but encompasses different aspects of ourselves physical, mental, emotional, intellectual, social, financial, spiritual and family? 

In order to understand our wellness, we  need to know all above components that make us well. Even when one of these factor is not good, we will be disturbed. When we know the factor, soon, we can take remedial step. This would be possible only through alert INTELLECT that controls the mind. Then it seems possible to have a Holistic WELLNESS!

When I say about the alertness, following experiences flash back:

• At times I show my office ID card instead of taking out the key to unlock the house door!

• We with family went out for dinner in one of the best restaurants. And finished, I started walking towards the wash basin with Plates in my hand..!

• I don’t login and use Facebook, YouTube, yahoo, Gmail, etc., in my personal computer at home… thinking these are blocked any way. Till I realize – I am at home..!

• At times at home, I keep my hands in front of tap waiting for water to come by itself and it's very frequent with me. I just forget we have to turn on and off the tap at home.

• Once after talking to one of my friends I ended the conversation saying, "OK bye…in case of any issues will call you back"

• By mistake when I delete a message from mobile, I hope for few seconds that it’s in recycle bin!

• Once I went to a pharmacy and asked for a tab….pharmacist asked me, whether I want 250 mg or 500 mg….. I replied 256 MB …. thank god he didn’t notice..!

• And I – after a hectic week, went to a movie. In the middle of the movie, when I wanted to check the time, I kept repeatedly glancing at the bottom right corner of the screen in the Theater 

Why such things keep happening to us, that's due to the sensors of our alertness have slowed down. 

These symptoms are commonly seen in the people, whose burnt out level is too high - their lifestyle needs immediate attention, as they have totally forgotten to relax, mind is always in hyper beta (Beta brain waves occur between 14 - 30 Hz but during intense mental activity can reach 50 Hz i.e., Beta waves characterize the conscious waking state at 14 cycles per second and up). This state of brain waves while we are active.
During alpha (Alpha brain waves occur between 8 - 13 Hz i.e., the alpha state operates at a lower cycle, 7-14 cycles per second level. In general, the alpha rhythm is the prominent EEG wave pattern of an adult who is awake but relaxed with eyes closed). This state of brain waves early morning when we get up from sleep. 
In delta (Delta brainwaves occur below 3.5 Hz i.e., brain wave activity in the delta state ranges from 0 - 4 cycles per second. This is total unconsciousness, deep, dreamless sleep. When we are asleep and not dreaming, the brain generates delta waves). This state of brain waves when are in deep sleep.
This state helps to derive the necessary energy to not only to make our day's activities easily possible but also helps to repair the cells and tissues thereby the weaker organs efficient, which otherwise would succumb to every small additional pressure and fails to work efficiently.

Now let’s see what's the degree of our burnout level?

For each question, tick the cell in the column that most applies to you against every question in a row:

#	Question	Not at all	Rarely	Some times	Often	Very Often
1	Do you feel run down and drained of physical or emotional energy?
2	Do you find that you are prone to negative thinking about your job?
3	Do you find that you are harder and less sympathetic with people than perhaps they deserve?
4	Do you find yourself getting easily irritated by small problems, or by your co-workers and team?
5	Do you feel misunderstood or unappreciated by your co-workers?
6	Do you feel that you have no one to talk to?
7	Do you feel that you are achieving less than you should?
8	Do you feel under an unpleasant level of pressure to succeed?
9	Do you feel that you are not getting what you want out of your job?
10	Do you feel that you are in the wrong organization or the wrong profession?
11	Are you becoming frustrated with parts of your job?
12	Do you feel that organizational politics or bureaucracy frustrate your ability to do a good job?
13	Do you feel that there is more work to do than you practically have the ability to do?
14	Do you feel that you do not have time to do many of the things that are important to doing a good quality job?
15	Do you find that you do not have time to plan as much as you would like to?
	Total Ticks	C1X 1	C2X  2	C3X 3	C4X 4	C5X 5
	Total of Weighted Scores Total =

Checking Yourself for Burnout Total ticks of each column C1, C2, C3, C4 & C5 and multiply these numbers with 1, 2, 3, 4, & 5 respectively and add the products thereof, the sum is the Weighted Scores Total.

Your score is:

Score Interpretation to test your Level of Burn Out.

Score	Comment
15 – 18	Little sign of burnout here
19 – 32	Little sign of burnout here, unless some factors are particularly severe
33 – 49	Be careful - you may be at risk of burnout, particularly if several scores are high
50 – 59	You may be at severe risk of burnout - do something about this urgently
60 - 75	You may be at very severe risk of burnout - do something about this urgently

This is my introductory talk, while handling the topic, "Manage Yourself to Cope with Stress" for the course Diploma in Yoga Therapy, Natural Living and Naturopathy for Yoga Vidya Niketan.