Health…what is health? A quick google search came up with “the state of being free from illness or injury.” Makes sense. When we say, “I’m so grateful I have my health” usually this is what most of us mean. However, as a nurse practitioner, I find it only scratches the surface. What about my mental state? What about the stressors and their impact on my life? What about my social well being? If I don’t have a broken arm but am miserable with and around people would I be considered healthy?
My daily job as a nurse practitioner is to keep people healthy – not just free disease or infirmary but as the World Health Organization defines it to provide “a state of COMPLETE physical, mental and social well-being.” But what I have found in my years of practicing – what has been getting me frustrated recently – is that my job has really been more about treating diseases instead of preventing them. As an example lets look at metabolic syndrome, a disease composed of abdominal obesity, insulin resistance (think type 2 diabetes), high blood pressure, and high cholesterol. This disease affects greater than 25% of adults with the incidence only increasing. It leads to heart attacks and stroke among other things. I would see these patients in the office all the time and tell them, “You want to get healthy? You need to focus on nutrition and exercise.” That’s the prescription. I’d see them in 6 months and…it never happened! They would end up leaving the office with at least 3 pills as the band-aid to the problem.
I used to blame the patients. I would fall back on being a mom with the “I told you so” line. But now I am seeing that it was really my fault for not giving patients tools for nutrition and exercise. That is not an easy prescription to give someone without any idea about nutrition or working out. How many of us have been to a planet fitness and didn’t know where to begin? Or tried some “diet” for a couple weeks and failed because it just wasn’t sustainable?
Many of you know that I’ve made some of my own lifestyle changes over the past month. I have tried “diets” before and was often left feeling hungry and tired from not eating the right foods or the right quantity. I have found something now that is sustainable for me and what I found was that not only have I lost some weight but I also feel great! I feel better in my workouts and I also have more energy than I did before. Food is not just our fuel but also our medicine. Exercise doesn’t just give us muscle and lean us out but also is the our prescription for…health.
I now work in nursing homes with patients who have multiple diseases. Sometimes why they are in there is out of their control. Disease and injury can happen beyond what we can control. But what if having a few tools in the health tool belt will not only prevent some disease but help us recover faster when illness occurs? I think I would choose that.
Health: physical, mental, and social well being. We all want that. And so at Never Doubt we try to give a life prescription: there’s a daily exercise plan, we have a dietitian to help navigate through the 8,000 diets out there and provide a community to support it all. But we have to fill our prescription to see the changes we are looking for – on the scale, at the doctors office, internally. It’s not going to happen overnight. Or even in a month. It’s going to take several months, maybe years, and persistence to notice a difference. But the sooner we start on the path to health and wellness the more we can move the needle towards complete well-being.