What Is Health?

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What Is Health?

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Health isn't just an absence of disease but also an abundance of vitality. Real health gives you peak performance, both physically and mentally. It gives you a high level of energy, emotional balance and a sharp mind. Your body has the ability to fight off disease and illness, you don't get colds, and you don't suffer from the preventable diseases such as heart disease and cancer that rob the health of so many people. Your healthy body allows you to enjoy a long and healthy life span to achieve your full potential, rather than the shorter life span ending in many years of chronic disease leading to pain, disability and ill health, that are now so common.

Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social wellbeing, and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity. - The World Health Organisation

Most people do not have real health, or have not experienced it for a long time. The Optimum Nutrition UK Survey (ONUK) published in 2004showed that only 6% of those surveyed were in ‘optimal health’, while 44% were in poor health, with frequent low energy (80%), constipation (81%),high stress (75%), PMS (women 64%), abdominal bloating (64%), frequent colds (50%), headaches or migraine (46%) and depression (46%) and other common symptoms. The survey shows that most people are ‘vertically’ ill. Still upright, but not feeling great. Doctors deal with sick people, the ‘horizontally ill’, but what the ONUK survey shows is that most people are living with low energy, aches and pains, stress, digestive problems, and a general lack of vitality.

Food is Better Medicine Than Drugs by Patrick Holford & Jerome Burne lists the questionnaire used in the ONUK Survey, so that you can find your own level of health. It also comments on the results and suggests specific ways to improve your health score.This book is recommended by SuperLiving as a good resource for healthy living.

Some of the warning signs of poor health, taken from the ONUK Survey, are:

Needing tea, coffee, a cigarette or something sweet to get you going in the morning.
Having energy slumps during the day.
Getting dizzy or irritable if you go six hours without food.
Feeling too tired to exercise.
Gaining weight for no reason.
Suffering from mood swings or depression.
Over reacting to stress.
Loss of interest in sex.
Ageing prematurely.
Worsening memory.
Lacking motivation.
Regular infections.
Insomnia.
Bad breath.
Constipation.
Bloated stomach.
No daily regular bowel movement.
Joint aches or arthritis.
Allergies
Headaches.
More than three colds a year.
High blood pressure.

Health is the one thing you can’t buy back once you’ve lost it. - Denis Waitley

The Spectrum Of Health

A lot of people have poor health and the aim of the medical profession is to raise their level of health to average.

Most people have average health and are usually quite happy with this. If their health becomes worse they go and see the doctor, and expect the NHS to fix them.

People with good health have usually taken responsibility for their own health by finding out the real health information that is useful and incorporating it in their everyday lifestyle. They have learned how to be healthy. This effort has to compete with everything else going on in your life, and many people do not take the time or have the inclination to achieve this level of health.

Most people overestimate how healthy they are, and this leads to a general lack of concern about health. When someone with diabetes still thinks of themselves as being healthy, this removes much of the motivation to take powerful action to overcome their health problem. This mind set is common and dangerous.

Mental health is also part of the health spectrum, and this includes the negative areas such as depression and anxiety through to the positive areas such as self confidence and successful relationships. As with physical health there is a lot you can do to improve your mental health, and this also takes effort.

Our Online Pharmacy & Complementary Health Store have a wide range of products and information to help restore your health and also to bring your health up to a higher level, and our happiness and success sections can help to maximise your mental health and lifestyle choices.

Other Definitions Of Health

There has not been any improvement on the WHO's definition of health, published in 1948. There have, however, been some discussions about the definition in the medical press.

"Health is the ability to adapt to your environment." was suggested in The Lancet. This is certainly a test which separates health from ill health, because ill health begins when our reserve capacity to cope with our environment is exceeded.

"The fact is that one cannot be healthy in an unhealthy society." is also put forward in The Lancet, which has some ring of truth to it, but is not an idea that I want to agree with. I would rather turn this on it's head and say that being 'normal' in an unhealthy society is unhealthy. I think that this is more useful, and, yes, I would class UK society as being unhealthy, because it is normal or average to be unhealthy.

“It is a ludicrous definition that would leave most of us unhealthy most of the time.” was written in the BMJ by Richard Smith. While this is certainly true, I think it just emphasises how important the concept of health is, and brings into sharp focus the fact that Western medicine has not yet come to terms with it. In general, doctors don't know much about health, they are experts on disease, and have been trained in this way by the 'health care' system in which they operate. In just the same way you don't learn much about happiness by studying depression.