Assessing Surroundings

For someone like Andrea, it will help to go into more detail about Surroundings as part of the Integrative Health Assessment; doing so can act a springboard into conversations about how to incorporate surroundings into the Personal Health Plan (PHP).  

Mindful Awareness Moment

Assessing Your Own Surroundings

• How is your home environment? What one thing could you change, right now?
• How about your work environment?
• What sort of emotional surroundings do you experience each day?
• How much do your surroundings—physical and emotional—affect your well-being?
• How important are your surroundings to you, compared to the other seven areas of self-care within the Circle of Health.

The handout “Assessing Your Surroundings” offers additional questions.

You can ask Andrea to take stock of several possible areas, noted above. Note what arises that could receive more attention in her PHP:

• Home. Andrea lives alone. She rents an apartment that she does not like. The cost of living is high in the city where she lives, so she has to keep room temperatures cold in the winter. She lives in a neighborhood that has a lot of crime. Her home is cluttered, but she keeps it relatively clean. She is not a hoarder. Sometimes she sees roaches. She has a smoke detector. No air conditioning, but fans work to cool down her apartment. She drinks filtered water.

Work. Andrea likes her job, but she is competing for a promotion, and that has created tension with her coworkers. When not working from home in her apartment, she works in a cubicle that is quite noisy. She has not taken the time to decorate it. She has had carpal tunnel symptoms lately from using her computer. She takes a total of 10 minutes of breaks a day, if that, and she works through her lunch time. Her office environment has some natural light and, unlike her apartment, is never too cold or hot