Our health is linked to emotional and social wellness

A series of clergy health articles by Gwen Wagstrom Halaas

For as in one body we have many members, and not all the members have the same function, so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members one of another. Romans 12:4-5

This body is an awesome gift - one of many complex and microscopic parts - each cellular function dependent on many things and each cell functioning in relation to others. One damaged cell might be rapidly repaired or removed by the body or might begin to recruit others to wreak havoc. It is in the relationship of these cells, one to another, and these organs and these limbs that is the function we know as living human beings. If you have ever witnessed the birth of a baby, you must know the miracle of this gift. Every parent worries, and quickly counts fingers and toes, and yet almost every child appears to be fully healthy. That is the beginning of the need for wellness. A healthy newborn child does not need to be fed immediately or exercised or given medicine. It has what it needs to begin life. A newborn child is often quiet and wide-eyed, taking in the touch and the smell of a mother‘s skin and the sound of a parent's voice. A newborn child is fed by love but soon it has other needs.

Our bodies need healthy food, water, sunshine, movement and rest. Parents help us on our journey to wellness by feeding and loving us, sending us to school and out to play. As we take on our own responsibility we hear our parents‘ voices. "Eat your breakfast." "Get some exercise." "Go read a book." "Take a nap." Of course, we ignore those voices but if we pay attention, we can sense our body's messages - hunger, restlessness, and fatigue. To maintain our wellness, we must be attentive to these messages … yet our habits have distracted us. We ignore our hunger in the morning in our rush to get out the door; we get aches and pains from the tension of sitting and staring at our computer; we yawn from the lack of deep breathing; we grab a candy bar or doughnut or whatever is handy to help us get through the morning or afternoon; we nod off at meetings but stay up at night staring at the television. This is not good stewardship of our precious gift of life - our complex body. Wellness is a lifelong journey of attending to these needs. There are no shortcuts to health and wellness. The medicines and technology of Western medicine can at times rescue us from our human behaviors, but we cannot ignore our health and put our faith in medical science. It is good stewardship to practice healthy behaviors and to encourage the same in others.

Our physical wellness is a result of eating healthfully, sleeping restfully, and living actively. But attending to our physical health in isolation is not enough. Our physical wellness is linked with our emotional wellness and is also linked with our social and interpersonal wellness. Many of us remember the media coverage of children from Eastern Europe orphanages who were kept for years in cribs. Some of those children died from failure to thrive. They died from lack of love. We need to be loved - from the moment we first feel our mother‘s skin we are attuned to and nourished by human touch. From the moment we hear our mother's voice in the womb, we listen for that voice, familiar and loving. As we grow, we learn how to love and care for each other from our parents and siblings. In our relationships with family and friends, we experience emotions - positive and negative. We learn the value of those relationships and the love and joy that they bring for our own sense of wellness. Today our extended families live far from each other and the busyness of work consumes our time and drives us to escape to the quiet of our homes ignoring friends and community. We need to practice better stewardship of these relationships with family and friends - nurturing and maintaining them for our social and emotional health and wellness.

As we grow in the love of family and friends, we also learn about the love of God. It is through our human experience of being loved that we can begin to understand the depth of God‘s love and the gift of God's only Son for us so that we may have eternal life. This gift is what draws us together as a community of believers, one body in Christ. As children, we grow in the love of parents, family and friends and we learn to act responsibly in caring for ourselves and for others. As Christians, we are one body in Christ. We can learn to practice good stewardship of our physical, emotional and social wellness that will allow us to thrive in service to each other and to the world.

Gwen Wagstrom Halaas, MD, is director, Center for Interprofessional Education, Academic Health Center, University of Minnesota and Assistant Professor, Department of Family Medicine and Community Health.