Search
YouDriveHealth logo for top bar

Hello

You Drive Your Journey To Health

News

YouDriveHealth covers all aspects of health – physical, financial and mental, as well as our life journey.

Health, or wellbeing or wellness, is a huge subject, so we’ve broken it down into domains and areas or topics within these.

road in landscape

TRENDING

woman stretching exercise

If as you’re progressing you want to know a bit more about some of the concepts, click the link here: 

Overall health
Domains
Values, attitudes and beliefs
Attitude to change
Locus of control
Locus of control
What our site's for
What we believe

IT'S TIME TO WORK OUT...

… exactly where you’re at with your overall health, or wellness, or well-being.

Have a look at some of our questionnaires which can tell you more about your own health.  Fill in your first name and email and click Next to see the options. Then answer the questions as they appear. If you subscribe you will be able to store your scores, and you can see later whether you’ve been able to make any improvements.

So first we allow you to assess your current health (or wellbeing, or happiness). We do this by questionnaire. As part of our process we offer three different questionnaires you can take to assess your overall health.
1. A very quick Subjective Happiness overview of your health and wellness, comprising only 4 questions
2. A more detailed Oxford Happiness Questionnaire comprising 29 questions
3. A personal wellness questionnaire of 25 questions, spanning several health 'domains'.
Choose the questionnaire, click the link then when you've finished hit the back arrow to return here.
Subjective Happiness Scale Questionnaire

Click here
Oxford Happiness Scale Questionnaire

Click here
Personal Wellness Questionnaire

Click here
We've split overall health into 8 'domains' - the most common is from 'Life of Wellness'.
1. Emotional Wellness: Awareness and acceptance of feelings
2. Spiritual Wellness: A search for meaning and purpose
3. Intellectual Wellness: Recognition of your creativity, knowledge and skills
4. Physical Wellness: Need for physical activity and balanced nutrition
5. Environmental Wellness: Positive awareness and impact on your environment
6. Financial Wellness: Debt reduction, cash flow balance or financial future planning
7. Occupational Wellness: Personal achievement and enrichment from your career
8. Social Wellness: Contribution to your community

Click the link below to start the questionnaire, then when you've finished hit the back arrow to return here.
Click here
Even when you've decided what to do, there's a chance it will never happen.
Your path needs to be in live with your core values, or you'll find yourself struggling. Do you even know what these are?
How likely are you to make changes - do you naturally resist change?
Lastly, do you believe you are empowered to make the change, or is something likely to derail you?

There are questionnaires addressing these three areas below. Choose the area you want to look at, click the link then when you've finished hit the back arrow to return here.
To move forward successfully you need to be moving in accord with your core values. Do you know what your core values are?.

See what's important about core values

There are lots of ways of establishing your core values - most involve online questionnaires. You can choose which questionnaire to use here - click the link below and you will go to a site which gives you a load of options for finding your core values..


Go to list of core values questionnaires
There's no point in seeing where you need to make changes if you aren't going to do something about it. The problem is that some people just don't like change.

You can do a questionnaire to assess your attitude to change here.


Click the link below to start the questionnaire, then when you've finished hit the back arrow to return here.
Click here
Your locus of control says whether you think you're in charge of your own destiny or whether you think the universe makes things happen to you. It can be internal or external, or in between.

You can do a questionnaire to assess your locus of control here.


Click the link below to start the questionnaire, then when you've finished hit the back arrow to return here.
Click here

If you register (or sign if you’ve already registered) you’ll be able to see all these questionnaires and save the results and build up a health record, and also see questionnaires in each health area.

Register
Sign in

YouDriveHealth - our Drives

Here you can see all the different health areas covered in our site – we call them ‘drives’. They will scroll across, or you can use the arrows to move.

YouDriveHealth - Life Journey

We believe that life is a journey, not a destination.

We have split the journey into five sections – click the link below to go that section.

Conception, maternity and birth

Childhood and growing up

Teens

Adulthood and work

Healthy ageing

About YouDriveHealth

YouDriveHealth looks at all aspects of health, and we especially want to help you make your life journey as good as it can be.  You can read that there are four keys to happiness – they are first friendliness, second compassion, and third joy and equanimity.  You can see that below – click on the white(-ish) testimonial below to see the book.

"We try to help with all aspects of health - physical, financial and mental, and encourage you to take personal responsibility for your own health"
Picture for testimonial
Kristi Bowman Author - A Butterfly Life, 4 Keys to More Happiness
Go to About us

Write on our blog!

We believe in what we’re doing.  We want to create a community of people who really care.  You can register and then start to understand and subsequently improve your health.  Or wellness, wellbeing or even happiness.

We write posts fairly regularly, but even so we’re busy continually developing the site.  Why don’t you sign up with us so you can also write posts and articles too?

For visitors

Why don't you join us?

You can register to join us as a member, when you’ll be able to download our stuff and comment, or as a YouDriver when you’ll also be able to check your health and set up your own action plans to make some improvements.  If you’ve already registered, sign in below. Or let us know what you think.

Register
Sign in
Contact us
Go to blog

YouDriveHealth

At YouDriveHealth we can provide you with information, tools, calculators and also support for may aspects of health – physical, financial and mental.  If you register by entering your email address then when you sign in you can comment and contribute.

Register with YouDriveHealth
Sign in to YouDriveHealth

©  YouDriveHealth Limited 2024

See Terms of Service

See Privacy Policy and Cookies 

See Comment Moderation policy 

Website : YouDriveHealth Limited

We've been busy, but we've finally sorted our issue!

YouDriveHealth news for November 2024

An update: 

We’ve finished our process to allow people to  map out their own health – assess where they are currently, work out what’s important to them and then take action to make some improvements – all monitored on our site. We’ve also worked out how to avoid including info which people think may be too personal to put on a remote site.

This will be launched soon after we’ve made a few updates and done some tests.

Future Options: 

We’re considering a number of options for the way forward.

One option is that we can make the site more  personal, giving people the option to create and download their own personal health report in sections PDF form, then deleing all personal info from the site for that section.

Another is to provide more tools, reports and PDFs which people can download and complete themselves.

Once we’ve finished this release, we’ll ask people what they want.

In the short term we’ve put some overall health questionnaires onto the site home page.

If you are interested in contributing to our site, via posts, articles, links to their site, providing papers etc for download then click the button below and fill the form in.

Get in touch with us

Apologies if you’ve contacted us already – please redo using the above.

Assess your overall health using a health questionnaire

You need to scroll down to see all the info in this popup – sorry for going on so much!

At YouDrive we try and help people improve their health. We use ‘health’ but we understand there are other terms such as wellbeing or even happiness that reflect how we are doing in our lives – if you’re interested in the different definitions and ideas see our page on the subject.

We want to help whether you have a particular problem – physical, financial or mental – or if you just want to improve some specific part of your life or just make some improvements overall.

You’d be surprised, but there has been a serious amount of scientific work done in this area over the last twenty years.

So first we allow you to assess your current health (or wellbeing, or happiness).  We do this by questionnaire.  Which one is determined by the type of person you are:

  1. You understand yourself well and want a quick overview of your health and wellness, and will drill down in any areas needing work
  2. You want to do a more detailed assessment and then focus on areas you’re already aware of
  3. You want to look at the whole situation in more detail across all the health domains.

By the way, we take your privacy seriously – we collect information that you choose to provide but we de-identify it as much as possible and will never share it with anyone without your explicit consent.

You can then drill down into some specific areas and there are more questionnaires to see your situation in these particular areas.  We provide you with specific information and refer you to other potential aspects of help. Our next step is to build a personalised action plan – for now we will make a suggestion for you to develop your own plan and then after a time you can see whether this has had a positive impact by retaking the test.

In future we will be engaging with medical and behavioural specialists to devise action plans for individual people with specific situations.

We have an overall questionnaire which you can complete which will assess your current state.

To close this box and go back click the X at the top or just click outside the box

Health domains

You need to scroll down to see all the info in this popup – sorry for going on so much!

We break down the overall concept of health or wellness into ‘bite-sized chunks’ that we can actually do something about.  The first level we call health domains.

We like the Life of Wellness site and we have chosen the following domains.

1. Emotional Wellness: Awareness and acceptance of feelings
2. Spiritual Wellness: A search for meaning and purpose
3. Intellectual Wellness: Recognition of your creativity, knowledge and skills
4. Physical Wellness: Need for physical activity and balanced nutrition
5. Environmental Wellness: Positive awareness and impact on your environment
6. Financial Wellness: Debt reduction, cash flow balance or financial future planning
7. Occupational Wellness: Personal achievement and enrichment from your career
8. Social Wellness: Contribution to your community

wellness wheel

Health Areas

Within each domain, we have included a number of health areas. These are specific issues that you can tackle.  Within each health area, e.g. Depression, once you have subscribed we have built additional information and exercises which you can do to help in the area.

To close this box and go back click the X at the top or just click outside the box

Values, Attitudes and Beliefs

You need to scroll down to see all the info in this popup – sorry for going on so much!

We all have our beliefs, attitudes and values – these have developed throughout our life based on who we are and what we have done. Let’s look at what these are.

The University of Reading explain: “People’s values, beliefs and attitudes are formed and bonded over time through the influences of family, friends, society and life experiences. So, by the time you’re an adult, you can hold very definite views on just about everything with a sense of “no one is going to change my mind”.

The combination of your personal values, beliefs and attitudes are your moral principles that guide you in life and affect your behaviour. However, your views can wildly differ to others and in an institution such as a school, these beliefs may be counter to the values of the school, child development or indeed the law.” 

Let’s look more closely at the differences between beliefs, attitudes and values.

Beliefs

These come from real experiences – we think our beliefs are based on reality, but in fact our beliefs colour our experiences; also, an original experience e.g. when we were a child is not the same as what’s happening now. Beliefs can be moral, religious or cultural and reflect who we are. They can be rational (‘it gets colder in winter’) or irrational (‘I am never going to make something of myself’).

Attitudes

This is an immediate belief or disposition about something specific. It is a recurring group of beliefs and behaviours aimed at specific groups, people, ideas or objects. They will normally be positive or negative and we will always behave that way to the target group. Examples of attitudes include confidence (I can or can’t do something), grateful (I an entitled to / grateful for XXX) and cheerful (I am generally happy / miserable).

Values

These are things (principles or qualities) that we hold in high regard or consider to be worthwhile or right / wrong. They are formed by a belief related to the worth of something – an idea or behaviour. Some values are common (e.g. family comes first, the value of friendship) or cultural (which the whole community have – see video at Study.com here)

The theory

Links to Wikipedia

Expectancy Value Theory suggests you balance your beliefs about something with the value you attach to it. The Theory of Reasoned Action suggests that beliefs and evaluation about behavioural outcomes determine attitudes, and intentions lead directly to behaviour.

Beliefs

Expressions of confidence – can change over time

Attitudes

Learned predispositions to something – are subject to change

Values

Ideals that guide our behaviour – Generally long lasting and often need life changing experience to change

Iceberg demonstrating implicit and explicit bias – from Owlcation

To close this box and go back click the X at the top or just click outside the box

Add your attitude to change - see how you view changes in your life

You need to scroll down to see all the info in this popup – sorry for going on so much!

Do you need to change?

No matter how healthy you are at the moment, the chances are that there are some areas you could improve. It may be that you have a real problem in one or more areas, and you would like to make some improvements.

At YouDrive we accept that there are many different degrees of ‘not wellness’ in a large number of different health areas, ranging from physical illness such as covid-19 through mental illness such as anxiety through to financial problems like debt.  We try and help where the problem ranges from ‘slight’ to quite bad’ – after this expert help and intervention may be needed.

However, especially in these times, we have to try and make these changes ourselves, possibly with some help from others, whether remotely or face to face.

The thing is, to make an improvement we have to change some things.

This involves changing our behaviour in some respects, and that’s not always easy.

Henry Ford, the creator of the assembly line, is quoted as saying “if you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got”.  

henry ford

Another way of looking at this: “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.” – attributed to Albert Einstein.

Consequently we need to make some changes.  The problem is that we have already developed a lot of habits, some of which we need to break and replace by better ones.  Some of our bad habits have become entrenched, and the bad results they create in turn engender further bad habits to develop – in effect the bad habits can feed on themselves.

We need to understand how we can make changes and stick to them, and that’s what this part of your health profile is about.

It will involve some learning, through reading, some videos and some additional information and also seeing how you react to change currently.

It will also ask you to consider whether you feel you are in charge of your future, or whether you feel it’s all fate.

To close this box and go back click the X at the top or just click outside the box

Locus of Control

You need to scroll down to see all the info in this popup – sorry for going on so much!

  • We want to help people in all aspects of their health  – physical, financial and mental. We also provide detailed explanations of how overall health (or well-being) is measured.
  • We believe these things are often linked, so we try and address health holistically. We are building templates, questionnaires and exercises to help you identify what’s important to you.
  • We think people should try and take responsibility for  of their own health as much as they can.  See below for what that means.

People look at things differently.  Some people believe things happen to them, while others believe they can influence what happens to them. Technically this is called the ‘locus of control’.  People can have an Internal or external Locus of Control

So how do you see things?

Psychology Today have a 15 minute test which gives you a summary of your position you can buy the detailed results if you want to.

My Personality Test have a 10 minute test which gives you a summary.

People tend to take more responsibility (locus gets more internal) as they get older.  However, external isn’t always bad – for example if you are physically unable to do some things you can accept it and focus on the things you can do.  This American video explains the concept and gives examples of how this can affect relationships.

locus of control

Internal

  • More likely to take responsibility for actions
  • Tend to be less influenced by others

External

  • Blame outside forces for what happens
  • Don’t believe they can change their situation themselves

To close this box and go back click the X at the top or just click outside the box

You need to scroll down to see all the info in this popup – sorry for going on so much!

What our site's for - YouDriveHealth and Interventions

Where YouDriveHealth applies

We understand that if your problem has been going a while and is severe, you need to get it fixed urgently with professional help. We call this an intervention.

We deal with situations where you’re not even sure you have a problem (but might want to improve some aspect of your life) through to where it’s serious (such as deciding to seek expert help). Often help is needed in other areas AFTER some expert intervention in one area (e.g. looking at jobs or help with depression after an operation).

health aspects interlinked
interventions and degrees of severity

So on a scale ranging from no problem to as bad as it gets, we deal with areas with no problem to moderate – after this you need serious expert help.

Also, these areas are interlinked.  Often a problem in one area has a knock-on effect on others. Losing your job can lead to anxiety and depression, which can turn you drink and impact your health.

You might have a severe issue in one area but that can lead to problems in other areas, and the people treating you for the first problem won’t be equipped to deal with these linked issues.

For example, doctors and nurses can treat you for a physical problem but can’t advise you about your job or finances.

We take a holistic view – we look at all areas and offer support across the whole spectrum.

To close this box and go back click the X at the top or just click outside the box

What we believe

You need to scroll down to see all the info in this popup – sorry for going on so much!

  • We want to help people in all aspects of their health  – physical, financial and mental. We also provide detailed explanations of how overall health (or well-being) is measured.
  • We believe these things are often linked, so we try and address health holistically. We are building flow charts and decision trees to help you identify what’s important to you.
  • We think people should try and take responsibility for  of their own health as much as they can.  See below for what that means.

Locus of Control

People look at things differently.  Some people believe things happen to them, while others believe they can influence what happens to them. Technically this is called the ‘locus of control’.  People can have an Internal or external Locus of Control

locus of control

Internal or external Locus of control

People with an internal locus of control are more likely to take responsibility for their actions, and tend to be less influenced by others.

People with an external locus of control blame outside forces for what happens, and don't believe they can change the situation themselves.

If you want to find out how you see things, you can take a test to show what your locus of control is.  Most of the tests are based on work by Rotter dating back to 1966 – many have been updated since. 

Psychology Today have a 15 minute test which gives you a summary of your position you can buy the detailed results if you want to.

My Personality Test have a 10 minute test which gives you a summary.

It's OK saying you can take control, but what if the s%^t really hits the fan?

It’s too easy to be smug and say you need to control your own destiny.  We know that things can really hit you hard – there are many things you really can’t control.  That’s why we think this isn’t all you need to know.  There’s another VITAL lesson that goes with it.

E + R = O - an event + your response = the outcome

EVENT = RESPONSE = OUTCOME

If you let the Event control the Outcome, and you don’t like the Outcome – you can only change your Response – not the Event.

This short video explains this – you can read more 

For a longer example – look at this US motivational speaker giving a real life example – it’s worth persevering with!

Watch Now - a US one minute explanation

To close this box and go back click the X at the top or just click outside the box

A Butterfly Life: 4 Keys to More Happiness, Better Health and Letting Your True Self Shine

Times of change can be a challenge, no doubt! Whether it’s a relationship breakup, job loss, or being diagnosed with a serious health issue. Or you may WANT things to be different, but it feels a little scary or overwhelming. The butterfly reminds us change can be beautiful, even necessary, in order to realize our full potential and live our best life.

Go to Amazon

All areas of health are interlinked

You need to scroll down to see all the info in this popup – sorry for going on so much!

Find your initial focus

You might think that physical, financial and mental health are quite separate, and for some people they are. However, often a problem in one area has a knock-on effect on others. Losing your job can lead to anxiety and depression, which can turn you to drink and impact your health.

You might have a severe issue in one area but that can lead to problems in other areas, and the people treating you for the first problem won’t be equipped to deal with these linked issues.

For example, doctors and nurses can treat you for a physical problem but can’t advise you about your job or finances.  Nor for the anxiety that comes with it, apart from prescribing some drugs, which might or might not be the best solution.

We encourage you to take a holistic view – we look at all areas and offer support across the whole spectrum.

health areas interlinked

Even this view of health is simplistic, as you’ll discover later if you go down that route.  You might want to consider overall health, or wellness or wellbeing, which include additional types of health, such as occupational health (how you are in your job).   Then there’s happiness and quality of life – how do these fit?

If you’re interested in that, click the link here to see more information.

To close this box and go back click the X at the top or just click outside the box

Health Areas in Domains

You need to scroll down to see all the info in this popup – sorry for going on so much!

Domains

We break down the overall concept of health or wellness into ‘bite-sized chunks’ that we can actually do something about.  The first level we call health domains. 

We like the Life of Wellness site and we have chosen the following domains.

1. Emotional Wellness: Awareness and acceptance of feelings
2. Spiritual Wellness: A search for meaning and purpose
3. Intellectual Wellness: Recognition of your creativity, knowledge and skills
4. Physical Wellness: Need for physical activity and balanced nutrition
5. Environmental Wellness: Positive awareness and impact on your environment
6. Financial Wellness: Debt reduction, cash flow balance or financial future planning
7. Occupational Wellness: Personal achievement and enrichment from your career
8. Social Wellness: Contribution to your community

Health Areas

Within each domain, we have included a number of health areas. These are specific issues that you can tackle.  Within each health area, e.g. Depression, we have built additional information and exercises which you can do to help in the area. You can create your own Action Plan to address this area, and see

Emotional: Anxiety, Compassion Fatigue, Depression, Gambling, Laughter, Narcissistic, Personality Disorder, Sleep, Stress

Environmental: Environmental Issues, Greenness

Financial: Debt, Family Finance, Financial Planning, Financial Wellness

Intellectual: IQ, Personality, Procrastination

Occupational: Jobs for Different Personality Types, Retirement Income, Work Life Balance

Physical: Alcohol, Disabilities, Dizziness, Drugs, Fitness, Food Preferences, General Health, Healthy Ageing, Illness, Nutrition, Sleep Apnea, Smoking

Social: Communication Skills, Communication Styles, Domestic Abuse, Emotional Abuse, Love Partnerships, Mental Abuse, Parenting Styles, Sexual Addiction

Spiritual: Are You Sensitive, Mystical Guidance, Spirituality

Each health area has supporting information and its own questionnaire.

To close this box and go back click the X at the top or just click outside the box

Understand Health

You need to scroll down to see all the info in this popup – sorry for going on so much!

Physical, financial and mental health

One definition of health is:

Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity. 

The NHS define health as: ‘We use a broad definition of health that encompasses both physical and mental health, as well as wellbeing. This means we are not only interested in whether or not people are ill or have a health condition, but also in how healthy and well they are.’

We believe we also have to consider financial health, as this can easily impact physical and mental health. Click the button to see an example of how these are connected.

 It gets more complicated…

running physical health
See linkages between physical, financial and mental health

What is Health? How about Wellness, Wellbeing or Happiness?

The Active Wellbeing Society (TAWS) define Health as a state of the overall mental and physical state of a person; the absence of disease. They define Wellbeing or wellness as a way of life that aims to enhance well-being and refers to a more holistic whole-of-life experience which also includes emotional and spiritual aspects of life.  We expand on this definition of health to include financial health and mental health, to make it synonymous with wellbeing or wellness.  

To close this box and go back click the X at the top or just click outside the box

See which domains you should address

You need to scroll down to see all the info in this popup – sorry for going on so much!

Having established that we use 8 domains, you need to understand which you should concentrate on.

The 8 are:

  • Emotional
  • Environmental
  • Financial
  • Intellectual
  • Occupational
  • Physical
  • Social
  • Spiritual

 

You can take a questionnaire, which scores you in each domain.  You can decide which domains you are strong in, and which you need to improve.

Another analysis shows which domains you should look at, but also which domains you want to look at.

To close this box and go back click the X at the top or just click outside the box