Most people are concerned about health these days. Unfortunately, the more information that is available, the more confusing it all becomes. Millions of people are dissatisfied with the care they receive from their orthodox medical practitioners, including the lack of personal attention, drug side effects, contradictory advice on diet, cancer treatments and hormone replacement and the list goes on. So, millions have turned to Alternative or natural medicine including Yoga, herbs, traditional Chinese medicine and others. But, there are concerns too about safety, efficacy, confusing marketing, limited scientific research and quackery in the sector.
So what really works and what does not? How can we live longer and healthier lives? How can we draw on the best from both alternative and conventional medicine and, yes, own our health? What does it mean to Own Your Health? These are some of the questions that agitate the minds of millions of people, all over the world.
Let us imagine a vast and wealthy territory where many people kept falling sick and dying due to some contagion or diseases. Knowing something had to be done, the territory’s medical establishment deployed the best ambulance service available anywhere in the world. The sick ones were quickly taken to hospitals where highly paid specialists saved lives with drugs as well as sophisticated and high-tech medical devices.
When a small group of concerned citizens came forward and suggested that a comprehensive measure should be emplaced to stem the effects of the pandemic and minimize people falling sick, they were derided, mostly by some sections of the health industry. At the core of the industry’s veiled concerns was greed: Some people got rich trying to make the sick well again. So, while the territory’s authority channeled more and more money into the medical establishment, fewer and fewer citizens received adequate care.
Reads like a scary story doesn’t it? Unfortunately, it is true of the health situation today. The frightening fact is that the quality of health care in many parts of the world is not a good story to tell. When it comes to profiting from the sick and dying, someone always gets hurt and it could be you. If you want to make sure that someone isn’t you, start taking responsibility for your health now, before it begins to give you serious trouble. As it is commonly said, the best way to treat a disease is never to get it in the first place. This makes prevention through your lifestyle choice the ultimate medicine.
How do we achieve this?
First, start by adjusting your perspective towards that of a health builder, not an ambulance rider. Rather than waiting for trouble to strike and trusting that someone else will be there to remedy the situation, do everything in your power to build and proactively maintain your health. Strengthen the choices and habits that will protect your health for a lifetime. Second, dare to live outside the passive ‘nourish-me-nurse-me’ model that is so pervasive in our culture and instead, learn to take very good care of yourself – in sickness and in health. Finally, if you are having a hard time acting on counsels like these, take a close look at the state of healthcare in the country and let that be part of your drive to rise above it to Own Your Health.
Through the eyes of natural medicine, health is seen as a state of both physical and emotional well-being. To be healthy means being in balance and harmony with yourself as well as your surroundings. Natural health practitioners act as gardeners, cultivating life and nurturing growth. Treatment has a dual approach the practitioner balances disharmonies and the patient accepts a personal responsibility to adopt lifestyle changes that support healing.
Orthodox medicine occupies the opposite end of the spectrum where it plays a very crucial role in the sustenance of life and wellbeing of the individual. The demand and emergency nature of this setting, with little time to save lives, makes them seem to approach treatment of diseases as crushing symptoms with drugs and surgery. This is why lifestyle medicine which requires more time to effect long-lasting behavioural change for sustenance of life, has become a specialized field to bridge the gap leading to the promotion of preventive medicine as a solution to healthy living and longevity.
It could seem easy to blame some money-hungry drug and medical equipment manufacturing companies, ill-informed healthcare practitioners and corrupt government-industry alliances for the state of health care in many countries. However, there are also plenty of people in science, medicine and government doing a lot of good and who are working hard to improve the sorry state of affairs. There is also another culprit that stand accused in all this – YOU! Yes, unfortunately.
Fortunately, there is another class of problems which you can do something about. Those problems concern your tendency to be passive and ignorant about your health and those of your children as well as the willingness to let social norms, advertising, media and industry influences dictate the state of affairs. Your eagerness to look for and accept quick fixes, lack of acknowledging your role in creating your ill-health, slowness to adopt the safe health path you know exist, which could be considered ‘too weird’ or ‘too much work’ are also part of the problems.
So, again, how then do you Own Your Health? One very good way to take ownership of your health is to make building and preserving your body’s natural vitality a top priority. Instead of focusing on treating a disease, focus on prevention through nutrition, water, exercise and other natural means. If sickness does strike, size up the strengths and weaknesses of various healing systems and decide which best suit your condition.
Most people have come to feel that a combination of orthodox and natural medicine which is called integrative medicine offers the best of both worlds. These all show that on one part you are responsible for your health and on the other part, the health experts have their role to play in ensuring sustainable health outcome.
You might live until you are 95. But what is the essence of long life if you are a burden to your family because your quality of life had been thwarted by multiple illnesses that might have been avoided if you had taken charge of your health proactively in your 30s and 40s? Longevity is the length of your life measured in years while the quality of your life is measured in vitality and vigour. It is about experiencing optimal health, free of disease, for as long as you live.
The idea is to detect disorders and diseases of ageing including heart disease, stroke and paralysis, diabetes, cancer, and other forms of diseases long before symptoms emerge to create havoc, disabilities, pain and compromised quality of life. By addressing these conditions years or even decades before the symptoms emerge, it is possible to avert and/or prevent these disorders.
Finally, each of us has the ability and responsibility to decide how well we live. We need to release ourselves from the belief that our health is primarily dependent on medical technology and restore faith in ourselves, in our own minds, hearts, the abundant medicines nature has provided and in the activities that truly generate and grant longevity. There is no point in just worrying, blaming, feeling bewildered and victimized. Instead, get off your knees and Own Your Health!