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Paradigm of Health - a major shift required.

 

What is Health?

The WHO talks about health being a person who is fit & healthy physically, mentally, emotionally & spiritually.

This sounds great. But how does one put that into practise & how does one know what is definition of being fit in any of those modalities.

The modern definition of health as per modern medicine (allopathy) has been absence of disease is considered being healthy. So if I have no major issues, then I am considered healthy.

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In this definition lots of minor ailments like period problems, coughs, colds, headaches, body pains, cramps, poor appetite, poor sleep, etc to list a few are all considered unimportant. We are considered to be normal in spite of having all these issues of health & imbalance.

So back to the question -- What is Health?

I would like to define it as physical, mental, emotional & spiritual wellbeing. This is good. But to help us understand it in layman's terms I will qualify it with following extra's.

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​​​​​​​We must realise that our body is an energic ball changing at all times. We are permitted to suffer from anything -- but that

takes us away from normal. We need to realise that being normal means being healthy.

Only then will we start to look & review our life as being away from normal & aim & attempt to do something towards that end.

 

Presently we consider everything normal -- I come home from work & am very tired -- that's Ok - I have worked hard.

I am at home & after doing housework all day, I am tired & cannot do anything after 7pm. I am so tired. But I consider myself normal.

 

Similarly, when people are able to burn energy & feel fresh & energetic after their full day's ordeal -- we tend to classify them as above normal. This definition puts them on a different plane & we consider that they are odd rather than they being normal & the rest of us being subnormal.

 

The reason this is important & imperative to the argument is that -- this shapes our thinking.

We then tend to slowly start accepting all the ills that are not too much but bother us in our life are Ok - but normal. Hence headaches, body pains, mood changes, etc are all under - normal activity.  

This normalisation of suffering has lead us to condition our thinking - that suffering is OK. We have accordingly stopped the search for

avenues where we can be without any suffering of any kind in our lives.

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                                                                                                    PARADIGM   OF   HEALTH  -  CONTINUIUM

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                                                       Good Health (Normal)                                    suffering              disease         chronic disease     death   

                                                      

             

                                                          

                                                                                             ( Our concept of health stops here)

 

 

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            On this linear model, this is exactly where we are. Most of us, are quite far away from normal or good health. But when we do not appear to

         suffer anything major ( as depicted in diagram above), we consider ourselves healthy. This is inspite of knowing within ourselves that our

          body can do better & we are short changing it.

 

                               Hence, it's essential to review our paradigm of health.

                                              

 

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