LESS SICK OR MORE WELL? A TALE OF TWO PATHS

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THE PATH TO "LESS SICK" IS WELL TRAVELED AND WORN 

What comes to mind when we think of health care? Maybe it’s doctor visits, physical exams, health screenings, lab tests, X-rays, and other investigative procedures. Often what comes to mind next are medication, surgery, radiation, and therapies devoted to eliminating or containing illness and disease. Most people are familiar with modern medicine’s procedures though maybe not with its apparent objective: to render us less sick.

When recently asked about New York Yankees baseball team members subsequently testing positive after receiving COVID vaccinations, health leader Dr. Anthony Fauci acknowledged that breakthrough infections can occur. He continued on to point out that none of the team members had shown symptoms, and they were not likely to transmit infection to others. In other words, they were less sick than they might have been. While I agree that in this instance not showing symptoms is positive, health care's focus on sickness is too limited to be a national health strategy.

THE PATH TO "MORE WELL" IS HARDER TO FIND

“Hamburger contains no ham. Grape-Nuts doesn’t have grapes or nuts, and health does not come from health care,” writes William Davis, MD, in Undoctored. While thinking our health care is the best in the world, we don’t think much about why we are not more well. Or as Walter Lippman pointed out, “Where all think alike, no one thinks very much.”

“Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity,” the World Health Organization’s 1946 constitution preamble proclaims. Reaffirming this definition of health forty years later in its Ottawa Charter, the WHO also delineated conditions and resources that countries need for their citizens to attain it. 

A primary focus of our medical services has become achieving “the absence of disease or infirmity,” but without advances for building “complete physical, mental and social well-being,” real health as described by the WHO will not be attained. Medical services won’t lead us to become more well. 

Being less sick is not the same as being more well. There are many examples of people who, despite improvement from good medical treatment, have not attained high health—the state of being vigorous and of having active strength of body and mind. 

There are others who, in taking initiative and going beyond medical treatment, have found and adopted additional health-building methods that boosted their energy and capacity—and in some cases eliminated illness entirely. 

Becoming more well is something we must do for ourselves.

IN BECOMING MORE WELL, WE BECOME LESS SICK

What does it mean to focus on becoming more well? It means we understand that health is characterized by high levels of energy, stamina, mental focus, and emotional well-being as well as resistance to common illnesses. It means we expect our health to be better in the future than it is today. As psychologist Christopher Peterson writes, “There is abundant reason to believe that optimism—big, little, and in between—is useful to a person because positive expectations can be self-fulfilling.” It means we look for and take inspiration from people like Lillian Brown, who at age 95 had to walk away from her Georgetown teaching assignment when the university was slow to accept her retirement. And it means that we go beyond traditional health care to find—and put into practice—the knowledge and methods for building more health. Increasingly, people are making the effort to pursue this path. Taking advantage of whatever useful information and resources we can find, we discover that in becoming more well, we are also less sick. 

TAPPING INTO OUR POWER IS THE BEST AVAILABLE OPTION

Just as our convenient community library’s information and resources expand thinking and facilitate transformation, the High Health Network’s rare knowledge, science-based methods, and rich learning environment expand knowledge and facilitate building and sustaining more health. We have more power than we realize, and we are not limited to an objective of being less sick. Tapping into our power to actively pursue more health requires courage, effort, and can be scary, but it is the best available option we have for attaining more health and enjoying the rewards of a higher quality of life. I think it is obvious. The path to more well is the one we want to be on. 

Joyce M. Young, MD, MPH
Managing Director, Advanced Wellness Systems

"Wisdom arises as we see things with greater clarity." –Allan Lokos

Photo by K8 on Unsplash

Sincerely,
Your colleagues at Advanced Wellness Systems