What Does Health Even Mean?

We have all been brought up under the cultural conditioning that health is simply the absence of symptoms such as pain, and that if you take this or that medication, usually depicted in advertisements as little tablets, successfully hitting targets on people’s bodies, or with graphics of miracle soothing liquids, flooding and cooling the digestive system, then all will be good. This is not health nor is it healing! This is the suppression of the signs and symptoms of the body, loudly communicating something within the body or mind, or our lifestyle choices are causing problems & damage.

Just like a fire alarm is the sign of a raging fire. Now, would you take the batteries out of a fire alarm and step back wiping your hands together and say, “well that’s that sorted”. Or would it be in your best interest to deal with or find someone to help you deal with the raging fire, before more damage occurs?

So why are we quick to treat our bodies in this way, by ignoring the fires and just taking the batteries out of the alarms, and does this equate to health or healing? Do not get me wrong, pain sucks! And painkillers are a great way of taking the edge off the often relentless suffering of pain. However, it is not a fix, nor is it moving you towards health, it’s just taking the batteries out of the fire alarm. 

The mere absence or presence of symptoms does not indicate or equate to how healthy you are, or are not. A lot of the symptoms we experience are actually expressions of health! Think of someone with food poisoning vomiting intensely (or maybe don’t, especially if you are reading this whilst eating) or someone with a cold sneezing or dealing with blocked sinuses. Are these individuals unhealthy? No, they are expressing health. These are the intelligent responses of the body to encapsulate, kill or get something dangerous, irritating, damaging, or poisonous out of the body.

Yes, there is often suffering along with this, but we’ve got it so wrong in our culture. That for the sake of a quick taste of comfort, we’ll happily focus solely on the symptoms (the healthy responses of the body) and think we are now OK, in the clear, healthy. When in reality, we have not changed anything, other than numbing ourselves to what our bodies are trying to communicate. Which can in turn can prolong the issue, progress it, push it and you further towards poorer health, and possibly bigger disease processes and something that will not be reversible.

The WHO defines health as:

“Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.”

I think a more refined definition comes from an online medical dictionary that states health is:

“a relative state in which one is able to function well physically, mentally, socially, and spiritually in order to express the full range of one’s unique potentialities within the environment in which one is living.”

So, health is a dynamic balance and interplay between multiple factors that influence our physical, mental, emotional, and social self’s, to deal with the world around us through factors such as:

• Your physical self = how you use your body with work and rest? How you sit, sleep, stand? Whether you exercise or not?
• Nutrition = what do you choose to eat? What’s sprayed or injected in the foods you eat, what’s in the water you drink?
• Environment = What unnatural chemicals and products are you using around you, spraying on yourself, or rubbing on your skin to be absorbed? What’s in the air you’re breathing?
• Social/spiritual = How are you interacting with the world and others around you? How are you dealing with the reactions and actions of those around you? What’s your purpose and passions in life and are you connected to or expressing them?

 It’s all in a word! The word health as we know it today emerged in the English language during the Middle Ages, evolving from the Old English word ” hale” meaning “wholeness”.

So, at its core, hale implies a state of completeness and robustness in all aspects of life. With qualities such as strength, resilience, and vitality, as well as inner peace, balance, and harmony. To embrace physical fitness, mental clarity, emotional stability, and social connectedness. All so we can possess the strength and resilience to thrive in one’s environment/life.

So, when you feel your body is letting you down with pain or problems ask; what choices have I made in the past, or health factors or bodily signs and signals have I maybe been neglecting to get to this moment now? Even if you feel you’ve left it too late; decide that, if you want better health, first get clear on what health actually is (Not the presence or absence of symptoms, but the balance and wholeness of everything working together in your mind, body and socially), and focus on what can be supported, improved and made better today, for your tomorrows.

This is why we Chiropractors choose to not focus purely on the symptoms, but focus on liberating & removing interference to the nervous system. After all, the nervous system is expressing the intelligence of the body. It’s monitoring and orchestrating all the functions of the body to bring you into WHOLENESS = HEALTH/HEALING!

With love,
James