It is easy to understand signs and symptoms of sickness. Cough, fever, fatigue, etc. And when examining our own health, we can try and compare ourselves to people who are sick.
For example, we may say, “Well I’m healthy because I don’t have a cough.” Or, ”My doctor said that my lab tests came back good, so I’m healthy.”
Signs and symptoms are measures of disease. Should they be used to measure health too? Probably not.
Let’s use the ‘health’ of a car as an example.
Pretend that car looked nice, had cold air conditioning, a clean interior, and it drove well. But it was 25 years old. Overall the car seemed like it was in good shape because you didn’t see any ‘symptoms.’ Would you feel comfortable taking it on a cross country trip? What are the chances that a 25 year old automobile may have a hidden problem?
Similarly, why should we judge our health based on symptoms? This is poor practice because many chronic health problems develop without any symptoms at all. These include hypertension, heart disease, diabetes, cancer, hepatitis, etc. In medicine these diseases are known as ‘silent killers’ because they develop without warning signs or apparent symptoms.
Did you know that a common first sign of heart disease in ‘healthy’ people is a heart attack.
If you are considering improving your health, chasing symptoms is a losing proposition.
Health can be defined as a state of optimal physical, nutritional and mental well-being.
Therefore, improving physical, nutritional and mental well-being will translate into overall improved health.
Let’s revisit the car scenario from before. We can take action to help keep the car healthy: rotate the tires, change the oil, top off the transmission fluid, etc. In other words, Perform Scheduled Maintenance. This may help the car run for another 25 years, or more. Success in keeping the car ‘healthy’ depends on maintaining the car. Not waiting for a breakdown.
The same concept can also be successfully applied to humans. And we know the maintenance schedule! There are only 3 (THREE) three areas that we need to address to improve our health. Improving (1) our body structure, (2) our nutrition, and (3) our mental health. And even a small change can have a major impact on how we age, how we feel, and how we decay.
- We address our body structure through posture, chiropractic, exercise, stretching, massage to improve the way we move, our strength, and our posture.
- Nutrition includes the Quality and Quantity of food that we put into our mouth. How much of the food that we eat is processed? Are there chemicals, additives or toxins?
- Our mental health includes our sleep, stress exposure and management, our sense of purpose, and connection with others.
There are other things that also impact our health too.
They include our genetics, our past health history, where we live, prior physical injuries & trauma, etc. Unfortunately they cannot be influenced as easily as your physical, nutritional and mental factors.
There are times when we think about our body: parts that we want to be stronger or less painful, living longer, feeling better. But what we’re really wishing for is to live healthier. This is accomplished by doing those activities that build health.
Find a way to live healthier. Use a knowledgeable health coach. Read our next blog post to learn more.