Am I healthy?
What is health?
Specifically, what is good health?
That's a pretty big question, AND it's also a pretty important question.
When I asked one of my clients this question the other day he pondered it for a little while. He came back "it's pretty easy to define what good health isn't, but I'm struggling to tell you what it is."
Understanding health this way is pretty common, for the most part it's the way Healthcare systems deliver service. They help you not have bad health (or help you not die from bad health), but once you've stopped being sick/injured/recovered from your health challenge they don’t help you improve your health any further. In fairness to the people who work in these systems, they are short on time, they aren't incentivised to, and they may not have the training to help with that aspect of health.
Wellness evangelists will tell you that good health is all about "thriving" and "manifesting your best self" but what is that exactly? And am I supposed to do anything other than just wish myself healthy?
The World Health Organisation defines health as "Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity."
Starting to get more helpful. We want to be doing good physically, mentally, and socially. The Te Whare Tapa Wha framework of health would add doing well spiritually to the mix, and not necessarily in a religious sense. I would argue for throwing in doing well vocationally considering we spend so much of our lives working.
We're starting to define what good health might be, and it's a broad picture. Basically it's doing well at a high level across the board in our lives.
So the person who gets to define what good health looks like for me, IS ME! I’m the person who understands my life, my values, and my desires the best. That doesn't mean I shouldn't listen to the professionals about how to look after my health. It doesn’t mean I should ignore the recommendations of healthy living guidelines. Instead it means I should think about my life broadly and define what good is in each area.
I'd encourage you to stay away from defining good by target numbers, because chasing numbers is often a recipe for frustration and guilt if you don’t achieve them when you want to. These feelings don’t add to good health, and can derail people from improving their health trajectory.
Instead it can be more helpful to think about good health by the practices you want to implement and how you want to feel. For example for me good health looks like
Feeling strong
Feeling flexible
Having the gas to put my foot down when needed
Being able to handle stressful situations in a way I'm proud of
Being able to calm myself down
Eating food that nourishes me and makes me feel good (while I'm eating and afterwards)
Having deep connections with loved ones
Having a supportive group of mates
Having something that excites me to get up out of bed
Having a restful sleep on a regular basis
When I define what good health looks like for me I can now start putting some practices into my life to move myself towards it rather than just manifesting a thriving state. When I start with good in mind then I can test out tactics until I find something that works for me.
