People underestimate the power of the unconscious mind. Because of their ignorance this very powerful part of our brain works against us rather than for us. I was reminded of this while musing about Donny Deutch’s quote on failure. He talks about the problem of people setting a goal for themselves NOT to fail.
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We have been all around the topic of health this week. What have we missed? Was there anything new to give you a different insight? Does anything suggest a follow-on topic? Let me know.
Health vs Healthcare [/caption] Health is a term we use all the time. It’s a component of phrases that we read about daily. Examples are health care, health...
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Today’s post is a few of my observations about medicine:
Medicine defines health as the absence of symptoms
Medicine for all its technical achievement falls short in making or keeping people healthy. It relies on brute force either through surgery or dangerous drugs to simulate a healthy state.
Achieving good health requires finding advisors outside the medical industry (Nutrition, fitness, counseling are examples).
Health has more attributes and dimensions than can be measured by medical parameters. Such things as attitude, social support and purpose greatly affect the overall health of an individual and are difficult to quantify.
I would like to know if anyone shares these thoughts with me. Have you found resources that help you be more healthy? Do you have ideas for improving health care?
Health vs Healthcare [/caption] Health is a term we use all the time. It’s a component of phrases that we read about daily. Examples are health care, health...
Are you on track for a health train wreck? [/caption] When I talk about a health train wreck, I am not thinking about tragic and catastrophic health failures. I am thinking about the ones...
Most Important Healthy Baby Tips There are some risks that you may face during your pregnancy as an expectant mother, and therefore it is important for you to be aware...
Health is a term we use all the time. It’s a component of phrases that we read about daily. Examples are health care, health insurance, health coverage, health club. It works, in that we understand what those things are but it doesn’t work in the sense that we actually understand what health means in these phrases, or in general.
Mostly we define health by what it is not. Health is not being ill. It is also not being infirm. It is when we try to say what health is that we get into trouble. One approach is to use averages. We assume that if the average man who is 5’ 8” weighs 150 pounds, then 150 pounds is a healthy weight. We do the same thing for blood pressure, temperature and many other measurements that we use to determine the health of an individual. Some of these are more or less effective – like temperature. Others not – like weight (and the even worse BMI or Body Weight Index). There are so many additional factors relating to the best weight for an individual that average is virtually useless, not to mention that when everybody is fat, the average is not going to represent a healthy weight.
Add to this the fact that Doctors are not trained in nutrition, exercise or any of the characteristics of a person identified as healthy. You don’t go to a Doctor to be healthy. You go because something is wrong and you want it fixed. But if you want to be healthy, you go somewhere else. Nowadays, the medical industry is attempting to co-opt the health agenda. The word is health maintenance and it is built on the same old average model discussed earlier. Weight, blood pressure and cholesterol measurement are key definitions of health status these days. They aren’t causes of illness but they do correlate and the medical profession is all over them with medications to ‘make them normal’ if your body won’t accommodate.
I don’t think we have a good handle on health and I don’t know how we should change things to do a better job. I am suspicious of the medical industry for advising me about health. The current health maintenance focus leaves me cold; as does the use of drugs with serious side-effects to correct any deviations from average. I don’t have a solution. I seek information from independent sources and try to use natural substances to treat issues. I do trust Doctors to treat illness and get my checkups but I hold back from accepting the drugs they recommend when my scores are bad.
I don’t think we really have health care. We are still basically identifying illness and treating them with brute force method. There needs to be a serious rethinking of the medical industry to fix this. Maybe Doctors don’t need to change. Maybe it doesn’t make sense for them to be good at treating illness and creating health at the same time. But if Doctors don’t change we need something else. What it should be, I haven’t figured out. Maybe you have some ideas.
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There is a lot on Digg this week about the Health Care Reform Agenda in Congress. That’s got nothing to do with understanding, maintaining and managing your health. That’s all about government. What we want to focus on this week is understanding what we mean when we say health and how decisions that we make every day can affect that health, either positively or negatively.
Musing about Health and Medicine [/caption] Today’s post is a few of my observations about medicine: Medicine defines health as the absence of symptoms Medicine for all its...
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We are doing a bit of transition here with the funnies. Today it is transitioning from our focus on comedy last week to the focus on health this week. It’s called Laughter Yoga. Here is the founder of Laughter Yoga, Dr. Kataria explaining.
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This week’s theme will be health. It’s timely with Congress and the President scrambling to ‘reform’ healthcare. Why Congress should be telling us what healthcare we should have escapes me. But underlying all this activity is the reality that we have many different perspectives on health. What is the definition of health? What do we mean by GOOD health? As RCB looks at health from different angles, weigh in with your thoughts.
Health vs Healthcare [/caption] Health is a term we use all the time. It’s a component of phrases that we read about daily. Examples are health care, health...
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Looking for good news on Digg this week, I found these items:
Number one is this exciting breakthrough in cancer treatment. With a Digg rating of 1684, it shows that it resonated with readers. Patients with untreatable prostrate cancer received an experimental treatment and fully recovered.
That is one upbeat story.
Number two tells us how to be happy. It seems that you need to be old, male and Republican.
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I have posted earlier on fasting. To my surprise, it has been easy to do, painless and I have been losing weight after being stuck at a level which was short of my goal. I always used to joke about eating being an addiction. Now I suspect that I may unknowingly have been on to something. It wasn’t until I stumbled upon Brad Pilon that I discovered intermittant fasting – fasts that last 24 hours or less. I had mistakenly believed that you had to fast for days for there to be any benefits and I also believed that fasting was bad for the body. I was forever telling my wife and sons that they were unhealthy by not eating breakfast and skipping meals. They paid no attention to my rants and now, in my advanced years, I become enlightened. I have been fasting for about two months now, two days a week. I break the fast to have dinner with my wife on most days but sometimes go for 24 hours before eating.
I would never have thought that intermittant fasting would be beneficial but I have to say that I have discovered that eating is overrated. Now Zenhabits has picked up the message from Brad and suggests a new relationship with food. It’s very simple which is what Zenhabits is all about. Food is just fuel. Fill your tank when you need it and forget using food as a surrogate for other things in your life.
I know that since I have been fasting, I don’t feel compelled to join my coworkers for lunch every day and I don’t miss eating on the days that I fast. I am also getting close to the weight goal that I believed was impossible two months ago.
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When I talk about a health train wreck, I am not thinking about tragic and catastrophic health failures. I am thinking about the ones that creep up on you when you are not paying attention to your life. You know what I mean. You notice that you gained weight. Your muscles are not firm but soft and flabby. Bad nutrition choices starve your body of the vitamins and minerals it needs to stay strong and healthy. Gradual deterioration is often difficult to notice. It is so easy to persuade yourself that the little decisions you make each day don’t have an consequences.
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