Photo by Na Inho on Unsplash

PEOPLE DON'T EXPECT BETTER HEALTH

When presenting at seminars, meetings, or now on Zoom, I’ll often ask attendees: “Is your health better today than it was five years ago?” The majority don’t believe it is better or don’t know. I then ask: “Do you expect your health to be better in five years than it is today?” Most don’t expect better health in the future either. Why do so many of us think this way?

Actually, most of us don’t think about health at all until we have a problem, then thoughts of pain, fear, and loss capture our attention and create negative states of mind. We also see health in a negative light in advertisements of attractive, smiling people grappling with illness and disease and in the way health screening for early disease detection can make us feel vulnerable. Even our own attempts to improve our health can leave us feeling disappointed when we don’t achieve the results we had envisioned.

News reports commonly portray health through the narrow lens of pathology. For example, all the complications golfer Tiger Woods can expect while recovering from injuries sustained in his recent auto accident are the focus of major news articles, whereas the articles make no mention of other possible scenarios someone with Woods’ capabilities and resources might reasonably experience. A more balanced discussion about his recovery would produce a more balanced perception among readers. 

There are other examples, but these remarkably unbalanced patterns of thinking are also remarkably common. Our thoughts and conversations are about disease, and that becomes what we expect. 

APPRECIATING HEALTH'S USEFULNESS

We don’t often think about health’s usefulness. In most instances, we possess sufficient levels of health to carry out all the things we do every day, but we easily forget that our health makes this possible. When health declines or is lost, like losing water or electricity services, its absence becomes our focus. 

Advertisements, news stories, screening experiences, and unmet health improvement goals feed cycles of negativity and taint our perception of health. “A mind is prone to overreact to negative things” writes social scientist Roy Baumeister in The Merchants of Bad. “Negativity grows fast and crowds out positivity,” according to researcher Barbara Fredrickson, who also finds that “negative emotions narrow people’s ideas about what is possible.” 

Most of the time our views of health skew to the negative; however, recognizing the positive health we regularly experience and knowing that many others have succeeded in their health improvement attempts raises our expectations for better health and increases motivation for pursuing it. Expectations catalyze success and, when managed well, lead to greater results. When asked if he thought his full-court shot that had barely missed the basket would go in, basketball legend Michael Jordan replied, “I expect them all to go in.”

BOOSTING THE ODDS OF EXPECTING BETTER HEALTH

We desperately need to read and hear more positive health stories to reduce our negative views and inspire better expectations for ourselves and our communities. There are numerous research studies—including five of my own—that have published findings from thousands of individuals whose efforts to increase physical activity, stop cigarette smoking, enhance mental focus, and so forth yielded positive, meaningful results such as more energy, mental focus, and stamina, as well as resistance to common illnesses. Increasing awareness of positive stories and data, creating more balanced views, and boosting the odds of people picturing better health in their future are priorities of The High Health Network. 

Replacing negative perceptions with more positive ones lifts expectations, increases motivation to act, and ultimately leads to the triumph of better health. 

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

Photo by Alex Wigan on Unsplash

“We all get stuck in place on occasion. We all move backward sometimes. Every day we must make the decision to move in the direction of our intentions. Forward is the direction of real life.”–Cheryl Strayed

Sincerely,
Your colleagues at Advanced Wellness Systems