Consider this: is it possible that as a society, our notions are wrong when it comes to health and wellness. We are sick and seem to only be getting sicker, we are living longer but it’s time to address the quality of how we age.
I think we have it backwards, and it’s time to flip the script and for our public health system and the medical community to develop protocols that encourage Wellness bearing activities such as Physiotherapy, Massage, regular activity and a proper diet.
It’s time to promote Wellness and Health (in that order).
Dictionary.com defines wellness as the following:
noun
- the quality or state of being healthy in body and mind, primarily as the result of deliberate effort.
- an approach to healthcare that emphasizes preventing illness and prolonging life, as opposed to emphasizing treating diseases.
Dictionary.com defines Health as the following:
noun
- the general condition of the body or mind with reference to soundness and vigour: good health; poor health.
- soundness of body or mind; freedom from disease or ailment: to have one’s health; to lose one’s health.
- a polite or complimentary wish for a person’s health, happiness, etc., primarily as a toast:
Wellness is the active process, which leads to and maintains our health. Health is a byproduct of Wellness. Therefore you cannot and never will be healthy if you do not practice wellness.
We need to start saying Wellness and Health.
Why do I say that?
It’s simple.
These days we only care about wellness once our health is compromised as a means to undo the damage we have done to ourselves. We sustain a near-fatal, or life compromising illness, and all of a sudden “wellness” becomes a priority.
We look for quick fixes like coffee enemas, special electronic gadgets, magical beans or super honey. Spending money is no longer an issue because at this point you realize that without a good quality of life funds will have no value.
Here is a quote I like, it has been attributed to many people, but I don’t know the origins:
“When asked what surprised him most about humanity the man answered:
Man sacrifices his health in order to make money. Then he sacrifices money to recuperate his health. And then he is so anxious about the future that he does not enjoy the present: the result being that he does not live in the present or the future; he lives as if he is never going to die, and then dies having never really lived.”
It’s time we smarten up.
Wellness is critical, and is a precursor to health; therefore we should train ourselves to say it first.
Our public healthcare system needs to be turned on its head because it’s not addressing the increasing number of diseases and disabilities people are acquiring as they are ageing. We need a “WellCare” system and to change our mindset.
Why should we only encourage proper diets and exercise once a person’s BMI classifies them as morbidly obese? The bad habits that adults have adopted throughout their twenties, thirties, forties and fifties have now become ingrained behaviours, and the ability people had to bounce back from injuries and health issues as a twenty-year-old is no longer.
Our society will pay for your back and shoulder surgery but won’t help you do something about that nagging back or shoulder pain before you need surgery.
This approach is not only dumb but also very expensive.
Our public health system will pay for the more expensive and potentially risky surgeries rather than promote prevention and physiotherapy to avoid the surgery altogether. Too many 40-year-olds with shoulder, knee and back pains are preparing for operations at 50 years of age. That’s terrible.
I once heard a doctor say, “there are two types of doctors: those who prescribe pills and those who cut, at a certain time in our education we have to decide what we type we want to become.”
I don’t blame doctors, they were taught a certain way, and once the pill doctor can’t do anymore, they refer you to the cutting doctor. (They do care about their patients and they are doing what they have been taught)
And when our time comes to visit the cutting doctor, we desperately look for the best rated and reviewed doctor to perform our surgery so that we don’t die in the hospital but are too lazy to see a physiotherapist for years beforehand. Talk about backwards.
By the way, hospital deaths following routine surgeries still happen, In July 2018 the head of Fiat Chrysler died at 61 as a result of complications from shoulder surgery. That’s terrible!
Nobody has ever died from shoulder physiotherapy, not once, ever!
Today, we don’t have our priorities straight. Individually, and as a society, we don’t allocate our time, money and resources appropriately.
As a society with universal health care, this means we all pay more in taxes for poor outcomes. For us as individuals, this means we will more than likely age miserably and are destined to live out our golden years with multiple diseases and co-morbidities that impact our quality of life and ability to enjoy it.
So what can you do?
Look for
It’s time to flip the script. It’s time for Wellness and Health.
Anthony Grande
Registered Physiotherapist