Photo by Joshua Earle on Unsplash

REPLACING 1970s-ERA BELIEFS WITH LEADING EDGE TECHNIQUES 

One of the High Health Network’s priorities is to teach leading-edge health building techniques in a rich learning environment. We want to replace 1970’s approaches and beliefs with more advanced concepts and methods. These outdated beliefs have been fixed in our thinking by decades of health messaging geared to reduce higher death rates from cigarette smoking, obesity, and physical inactivity. Indoor smoking prohibitions drove sharp declines in cigarette smoking, but obesity and physical inactivity have escalated, prompting even more aggressive messaging campaigns. As a result, smoking cessation, weight management, and fitness activities have become synonymous with health and wellness. 

Though these campaigns did not succeed for many reasons, the limited beliefs of the 1970’s persist. Like bottom-dwelling fish who only see in darkness, we have become blind to the need for more effective techniques for building health. Successful techniques exist, but they are not well known. They have been shown to increase well-being, yet to be effective we must learn and master them. This is where a rich learning environment can be extremely useful. 

LEARNING NEW SKILLS IS DEMANDING

We all have pursued self-improvement at one time or another, and of all the options, improving health is frequently one we choose. We embark on a new—and often fleeting—quest to learn and adopt health building skills as this entertaining video illustrates. 

While the quests may be fleeting, our disappointment and frustration endure. “Our achievements speak for themselves,” writes Eric Hoffer. He goes on to say: “What we have to keep track of are our failures, discouragements, and doubts.… We see our past achievements as the end result of a clean forward thrust, and our present difficulties as signs of decline and decay.” In other words, the issue isn’t the failed quest but rather our failure to remember that learning new skills is always demanding.

WHAT WE CAN LEARN FROM TOTAL BEGINNERS

As infants, we engaged in the demanding process of learning how to walk. “Before [infants] can walk...They crawl in all manner of ways. Roughly one-fifth of them will ‘bum shuffle.’” notes Tom Vanderbilt in Beginners. “Each hour, the average toddler...travels the length of some eight football fields, taking some twenty-four hundred steps.... Some 2.6 million steps, or about six months, later...infants will become proficient walkers.... Along the way they will have toppled over—a lot. Infants fall an average of seventeen times an hour.... They fully accept that learning not to fall involves falling.” 

“Luckily, they exist in a perfect learning environment,” Vanderbilt continues. “They’re highly motivated to learn things…they do not receive negative feedback for their errors.... They take fourteen thousand steps a day with a failure rate that would be deeply discouraging—maybe even catastrophic—for adult beginners trying to learn a skill.”

The infant’s objectives are clear: crawl less and walk more. Parents and family members teach the best techniques and give ongoing encouragement, helping to sustain motivation. Most importantly, family members teach infants how to combat frustration, overcome failure, and avoid prolonged disappointment.

THE VALUE OF A RICH LEARNING ENVIRONMENT

Rich learning environments boost success for adults, too. In these environments, leaders who are knowledgeable, enthusiastic, and inspiring connect like-minded people with each other and help them form a common purpose. Multiple modes of learning fulfill desires for different learning styles. A rich learning environment is positive; it engenders trust and offers encouragement, support, and feedback. It sustains the commitment needed for success. With the help of this environment, we can overcome failure and disappointment that otherwise might cause us to give up. 

This is the rich learning environment of the High Health Network where learning is contagious, mastery is achievable, and members collectively go further than they ever could on their own. Thanks to this environment, the health transformation we have long been seeking is now within reach.

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

Photo by Gautam Arora on Unsplash

Sincerely,
Your colleagues at Advanced Wellness Systems