The term ‘health’ can be defined in many ways. To me, health is the best wealth. It is better than grain and gold. It is more valuable than lands or buildings. You may have millions in your bank account, or you may have vast properties; but if you have no health, you cannot enjoy your goods. If you have good health, you can and will earn a lot of knowledge and wealth. Health is the mother of happiness. So what I’m trying to say here, health is the key or the ability to live our life to its full potential. Without it, life becomes meaningless.

From my point of view, it is a great idea for people to strive to achieve optimal health because it will give you tons of benefit in many years to come. We are all very different and complex people. We grow and change as different challenges, problems or needs become a part of our lives. So in order for our body and mind to keep up with this, we must achieve the optimal health. Today, health is not merely about freedom from disease or disability, but it includes everything. To really reach or achieve the optimal health, we must not only have a physically fit outer but we also need a vigorous inner. This means we must stay healthy physically, mentally, socially and for some people, spiritually. I also try to achieve optimal health in my own life because I know it would make me more productive and efficient in my daily life and also gives my body and mind a better chance to last longer.

Spiritual health plays a major role in my life and gives a big impact on my life because it gives me a deep-seated sense of meaning and purpose in life. This is important because without a purpose in life, a person easily throws their life away and will always take things for granted. Spiritual health is important to achieve and maintain because it will always put our foot on the ground so we can see and learn the meaning of acceptance, integration and a sense of wholeness. However, I did not say in order to achieve or maintain spiritual health you must be actively involved in one particular religion. Spirituality is not tied to any particular religious belief or tradition. Every person has his or her own unique experience of spirituality. But most importantly, spirituality helps me view life as a journey, where good and bad experiences can help me to learn, develop and mature.

I agree with the idea that social health influences physical health because this actually happens in my life. Social health means how people relate to each other, and how an individual is able to socialize with other people and form relationships. So for me this is important because I need friendship in my life, where I feel I have a place (person) to share and talk about my problems. I know, if I just talk about my problems with my friend it’s not going to solve my problems but at least I feel relieved and calmer after doing it. With that I can lower my stress levels and at the same time helps me to relax so that my problems will not affect my physical activities. So basically social health helps me to deal with problems, emotional stress, physical and mental illness, loss, and bereavement.

For me I have two major factors that influence my health related behaviors. The first one is my passion towards sports and physical activities. I love to play sports that require me to push my physical limits, for example football, basketball, soccer and running. This gives me satisfaction when I can see improvements in my abilities. I also don’t ever want to get injured before or during any of my physical activities, so I always make sure I am healthy and always warm up first before doing it. The second factor is my friend’s influences. Since most of my friends (male) have the same passion towards the same sports and physical activities, we motivate each other to do more and pushing our body limits as hard as we can. So by doing sports and physical activities, we can expand our body abilities and at the same time maintain our physical health.

The only alternative therapy that I would consider is the therapeutic massage. I will try this therapy if I have really bad muscle pain. I know some people say this kind of therapy is really good, but as science fact there are no hard evidence that show this messages really can help to heal the ailments. However I still consider this therapy because maybe it can help my body to relax so I can forget for a while about the pain.