Pandemic Lesson # 7 – What is health?

When I began this series of posts, I sat and planned out my top 10 lessons learned from the Pandemic of my generation.  Basically, I thought and just wrote my free-flowing thoughts in a conscious accounting of my experiences.  This title of “What is Health?” is ironic in the timing as I’m going through my own personal journey to better health which, for me, includes a number of key principles.  Each of us has these principles and they are all very different for our unique situations.  However, we all desire the overall goal of “good health” so, what is meant by health? And, how can we support ourselves to a state of “good health”?

The first definition from the Merriam-Webster dictionary site was “…the condition of being sound in body, mind, or spirit.”  I would argue that in this definition the “or” should be replaced with “and” for I’ve found that my feelings of good health stemmed not just from a good feeling in my body but how I felt about life.  “Sound” as an adjective in this sentence is defined as “…free from injury or disease.”  So, this definition tells us that the idea of health is that our bodies, mind and/or spirit are free from injury or disease.  While I’m no expert, I’m not sure that anyone using this definition can say that they enjoy good health because living life may actually cause us injury and/or disease.  It’s almost the point of living: experiencing all that life has to offer us – the good, the bad, and the in-between, or the “meh.” Now, if we change the definition of “sound” to be free from injury or “dis-ease”, I can buy that label.  However, that is not the mainstream viewpoint of the word yet it makes greater sense to me.  Unfortunately, Merriam-Webster does not have a definition for this term in its hyphenated form.  (Telling, isn’t it?)

The idea of “dis-ease” is “…used by individuals and healing communities who are aligned with wellness, choosing not to empower health issues by focusing on a particular ailment. The intent is to place emphasis on the natural state of “ease” being imbalanced or disrupted.”  Here is the more physical and mental or “mind” part of the discussion.  Notice that the idea of “spirit” is missing.  I found this article extremely interesting as it discusses the idea of “dis-ease” from a religious standpoint.  There comes that mind and/or spirit connection.  These terms are also routinely used in business and by critics alike.  This term used at a lot of chiropractic websites as a way of expressing treatment options.  There was also one particularly volatile and opinionated blog labeled as a factual site. (Yikes!)  The blog was very interesting at the level of vitriol and I secretly thought the author suffered from some type of dis-ease. 😉

What makes “good health” difficult to “treat” for any practitioner is that disease is something that may be diagnosed through established scientific testing while “dis-ease” is something left to the individual, isn’t it? Like, what makes me “at ease?” So, the idea of good health is really to each individual, and encompasses not just the physical “body” ailments but also the mental and spiritual challenges we have in just living.  I think each must have a balance and focus in their own due.  No segment is really more important or has greater weight than the other.  However, if these areas in your life aren’t all “firing” at the same time, we must stop and to some self-examination; there is no “test” to identify a cause of “dis-ease”.  We must do this on our own, in our timetables.

I came to the realization that I needed to sort out my own personal sense of “dis-ease” during the Pandemic.  Accordingly, I’ve been talking myself through the idea of better health as a goal.  To help me dig into what this means to me, I began journaling, blogging, researching, reflecting, and studying about this subject: What is my version of good health? I found that I used to identify what isn’t good health and tried to create the opposite.  However, in “avoiding” injury or “avoiding” being sick or “avoiding” cake, I actually focus on what I should be avoiding! I used this terminology during my attempts at good health in many ways: don’t eat too many calories, or don’t eat too much fruit, or don’t eat….

Blah, blah, blah.

My attempts at good health always seem to focus on what to “not do.”  This can be a very long list and after a while I became exhausted and really resentful of all these things I was avoiding to the point where I decided that I was done being careful and avoiding things I really enjoy.  This also created a lack of “ease” or “dis-ease” within my own mental body and I found this impacted both my physical and spiritual sides, too. Through reflection, I realized that, for me, good health IS all of those facets, balanced, and equally humming like a smooth, high-performance engine.  Good health is like a powerful Porsche!  (I’m a car!)

Speaking of a Porsche, I recall one of my bosses years ago had a Porsche Turbo with some number attached to it.  Her husband mainly drove it so the car was the stuff of legend in the office.  One day, she had to drive this fine machine in for the car needed to be serviced.  The cost was about $400 for a tune-up which was, apparently, routine servicing. My eyes practically bugged out of my head!  Here I am, a 20-something, just trying to afford my little Toyota! Seeing my shock, she explained that the engine was really powerful and needed to have more frequent maintenance to run at its optimal best.  I learned that engines such as these require specific attention to perform at peak racing levels which is what these engines are built for….or the German Autobahn.  The same is true for us: Good health means you maintain your engine.

So, what are you doing to keep your “engine” free from “dis-ease”? Good health isn’t just about avoiding things or having periodic tune-ups.  It is about the health of the mind, body, and spirit.  Curating your social media to recognize volatile blogs or extremely judgmental situations is like a tune-up of the mind, isn’t it?  Using your critical thinking skills to question how having an “avoidance” mindset may not be the best approach to good health.  Maintaining one’s physical and mental health keeps you running from day-to-day because one cannot afford a tune-up every day.  (I do have periodic tune-ups, too, that are special occasions or creative outlets.) Prayer, meditation, and/or a healthy spiritual practice, too, creates balance.

I have found that good health is in the details, how you approach each day, your intentions, and recognizing that ease is a desired state of health; the little things that make our engines hum and sparkle.  Don’t forget to find your own sense of balance and create opportunities for a tune-up every now and then for what is life without a little race to fire up your blood.  Peace.