Holistic Health
Here we are with Part 2 in our new series on the dimensions of health. In Part 1 we merely noted that a series would be a good idea as it will provide a means of documenting many dimensions of the concept and thereby help readers to develop their own definitions for "health".
Recall that I suggested a considered definition provides a platform of knowledge upon which positive health behaviors can be built. So the plan is: learn and do, know and act, got it? I like to press this point because in many years of health education it has always been frustrating to see people learn about health but fail to act on what they had learned.
Health is something that obviously is mentioned quite a lot, especially here at The Health Gazette. Although it is a word people hear frequently and even use regularly themselves, it is not well understood. As I occasionally point out, even health professionals with university qualifications have difficulty explaining what health actually is.
So I thought it would be a good idea to present a short series of posts here at The Gazette that explores the dimensions of health. By the end of the series we should have enough material to feed your thinking to the point where you can develop a sound and informed operational definition of health – one you can actually use.
Health is just wonderful, don’t you think? Yes; of course it is. It may sometimes seem a mighty complex and slippery concept, but it’s not the concept I want to discuss right now. It’s the experience. Health can be said to be its own reward and that’s certainly true if we mean the experience of health.
I think it’s easier to promote health when we remember to celebrate it. To recognize that health is about enjoying life, to the full. When we enjoy life, being essentially social in orientation (at least most of the time!) we spend a large amount of time in the company of others.
Everyone faces some degree of health challenge from time to time. Most are minor and uncomplicated. Many could have been avoided with the right knowledge and appropriate actions. Some are serious, even life threatening, and simply must be dealt with by every effective means available.
This is a story of success, of overcoming. This is Trish’s story of her path to wellbeing.
Sadly, many people are unwilling to make the number and degree of changes necessary for their own wellbeing, even for their own survival. I must confess this both amazes and distresses me. So when someone facing a serious illness wholeheartedly pursues health, to the extent of a total change of attitude towards life, it is certainly worth writing about. Indeed, it is worth learning from.
Continue reading about Conquering Health Challenges: Trish’s Story
It was when I said "more than the sum of the parts" that I always saw it: "huh?" was the best interpretation I could make of the blank expressions that gazed back. Yes, teaching what health means to advanced university students of the health professions had moments like this.
Was I disappointed? You bet. Was I surprised? Not really. You see, after that many years of western education and enculturation it was inevitable. Western thinking is by its very nature particularistic and reductionist. We are expert at analysis, but as any academic can tell you, not so strong on synthesis.