After taking some time to assess you health and to think about your priorities, the question becomes, how do you make changes? Integrative Health is healing-oriented medicine that honors the whole person (body, mind, spirit, and interconnection), including all aspects of lifestyle. It emphasizes the therapeutic relationship and makes use of all appropriate therapies, both conventional and alternative. Prior to a visit, Integrative Health providers will have a person fill out a detailed intake form. After a consultation, they create a detailed, personalized health plan, which lists a series of recommendations a person can use to optimize health.

This section helps you to create your own health plan.

Guidelines for creating a health plan:

  • Separate your health plan into sections. For example, you can use the following sections, or divide them based on the topics covered in the Health Agreement:
    • Nutrition
    • Diet
    • Movement and Exercise
    • Sleep
    • Lifestyle (habits, recreation)
    • Supplements
    • Mind-Body
    • Spirituality
    • Western Medicine Approaches
    • Other Healing Modalities (Could acupuncture, energy medicine, biofeedback, hypnosis, bodywork, etc. be of use to you?)
  • To get started, go to the American Medical Student Association Healing the Healer Web site, which will help you begin to create your own health plan.

    For residents taking the Aware Medicine course: When you have completed the exercise, click the “Print out your health plan summary” bottom at the bottom. Then choose “select all” or hit control A. Copy the printout and past it into a word document. When your plan is complete, please send a copy to the course directors via email.

  • Return to you health plan periodically. Modify it, add to it.
  • Do not overwhelm yourself. Choose a few items in you plan, and focus on them for a period of time before moving on to others. Do this exercise mindfully.
  • University of Wisconsin Integrative Health offers a number of resources to patients for enhancing self-care, and many of these will be useful to you and to those who seek your care. See also the Links and Resources Section.

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“The best six doctors anywhere
And no one can deny it
Are sunshine, water, rest, and air
Exercise and diet.
These six will gladly you attend
If only you are willing
Your mind they’ll ease
Your will they’ll mend
And charge you not a shilling.”

-Nursery rhyme, quoted by Wayne Fields in What the River Knows

“A good laugh and a long sleep are the best cures in the doctor’s book.”

-Irish proverb

“My own prescription for health is less paperwork and more running barefoot through the grass.”

-Leslie Grimutter