Attitude is the key

Dr. Geoffrey B. Frankson

The most important requirement for good health is a healthy attitude. By this we mean a positive outlook; a willingness to accept personal responsibility for life’s ups and downs, and confidence in one’s ability to take control of personal circumstances. The deadliest killer is to be found, not among the myriad diseases out there waiting to descend upon us at any moment, but right here in our minds.

Negativity, surrender and self-deprecation can do more damage to one’s health than any combination of germs, stress or cellular dysfunction. Extreme examples have been found in Australia where young, healthy aborigines, having been “cast out” by their elders, die in hospital in spite of all that modern medical science can do.

We need not go so far to see what “giving up on life” can bring. We are all familiar with people who have simply stopped trying to live a life with any goal or purpose, and we have seen how they just seem to fall sick and die within a few years for no real reason at all. Yes, they had high blood pressure, but so too does one in every three people over forty in this country. So they had diabetes, but the health that people with diabetes enjoy is largely a matter of control. And as for cancer, we all probably have it lurking somewhere in our bodies; the time and place that it breaks more dependent on our habits and our expectations than on our ‘fate’.

But more significant than those who give up and die are those who defy the odds and live. That is, people who have been severely injured or struck down with some deadly disease and who recover beyond all expectations. The will to live is as impressive in its power as is the surrender to death described above, and we do not have to wait for a catastrophe to benefit from it. People who are naturally positive are blessed, but a positive attitude can be acquired like any of life’s other skills. All it takes is practice - with a little help from a good teacher.

The best teachers are those who teach by example. They do not have to be paragons of good living; what is important is an awareness of what good living is all about. We all have personal reasons why we are not living up to our expectations, but it is not difficult to spot those who have no intention of doing so. Such people are to be avoided like the plague. It is not a lack of awareness that has caused them to give up, but the very negativity that we have eschewed, and it can be contagious.

The secrets of success are to be learned from those who are successful. To cultivate healthy habits, one should mingle with healthy people, recalling that health is primarily a matter of attitude.

Do not find yourself agreeing with such morbid declarations as “you have to die from something,” or being misled by the self-deluded who boast: “I have never been sick a day in my life”. Good health has nothing to do with death or sickness.

Positive is as positive does. It is in the act of taking control that one will find the resolve to make a change in one’s life. Do not go to the doctor to find out if you are sick, but to ascertain how healthy you are. You do not need a “diagnosis”: that is for the doctor to know if he is to treat your complaints. What you need is an understanding of what it is you have to do in order to achieve your health objectives. In other words, you want information on “wellness”, not sickness, and it just so happens that some of the information is common to both. When you check your cholesterol, it is not to see if it is high, but to find out what it is. You want to know your cholesterol, and that is a good enough reason for measuring it. You do not need your doctor’s permission.

To take control you have to know yourself, and that requires that you take a good look at your life. A medical check-up may or may not be a turning point in your life: it all depends on what the doctor decides. A wellness assessment IS a turning point in your life: it is done because you have already decided to take control. All that is required is a focus for the effort you are going to make. There are those who focus exclusively on one or other aspect of life. They are misguided no matter how lofty their singular ambition.

Healthy living has to be holistic with an equal concern for each dimension: physical, emotional, occupational, spiritual, social, environmental and intellectual. The recognition one receives for outstanding achievement in one area is not to be confused with “success” in life. What is the point in being rich and famous if your heart is failing and your children hate you?

The “health” that a healthy person enjoys is not simply the efficient functioning of his or her body parts. There is an aesthetic dimension to the experience of good health without which such good health will surely decline. Sadly, it is a dimension that seems to be lacking in many people, and indeed, there seems to be no lower limit to the degradation in health that a human being will tolerate. A fox will chew off his own leg in order to be free; a man will remain trapped in unhealthy circumstances even unto death.

We are virtually all born with a high level of functional efficiency. After those crucial first few months, babies are amazingly robust. Children raised in a healthy social, physical and emotional environment will instinctively eat a balanced diet, get lots of exercise, sleep well and keep themselves clean. They do not have to be “trained” to be healthy; nor do they need treatment for the many minor illnesses that are a part of growing up. Even a serious disease like otitis media (middle ear infection) will usually clear up without antibiotics.

The obesity, lethargy, stress and dental decay that we experience as adults begin as bad habits in childhood which later translate into real suffering. How we wish, as we sit in the doctor’s office waiting for our tablets, that we could go back and do it all over again. We would never have smoked cigarettes if we knew the smoking habit was so hard to break; we would have exercised more, eaten less and brushed our teeth regularly.

Difficult though it may be to change, it is never too late. Some things are gone forever: you will not grow a new set of teeth or recover the acute vision and the sharp reflexes of your youth, and a frame that has had to carry an extra fifty pounds of fat for the last thirty years will not go back to athletic proportions if the weight comes off. But you are capable of increasing your strength, finding more energy, and even increasing your intelligence, at any stage in life. With few exceptions, body parts are the very opposite to car parts: they do not wear out with use, but grow stronger and more efficient. Change the conditions under which your body has to live and you will be rewarded with better health, whether you are nineteen or ninety.

The essential requirement is the will to change; the desire to be a healthier person. We all want relief from suffering, but if that is as far as it goes, then such relief as we find in treatment is bound to be temporary. The person with arthritis who only takes tablets and does no exercise is destined to suffer even more arthritis when the effects of the tablets wear off. Amazingly, most people are willing to settle for relief. We have come to accept that problems must be treated as and when they arise, or to put it another way, that people are OK until they get sick.

“What is the problem?” the doctor asks. “Take this and it will go away,” is his response to your complaint, and neither you nor he will ask why the problem arose in the first place, or consider what should be done to avoid a recurrence. He will move on to his next patient and you will carry on as usual until the problem recurs. Backache is the classic example.

In this culture we do not do things for our health, we take things for our illnesses. And when there is nothing more to take, we simply put up with the suffering. How many people with diabetes do anything other than take tablets? How many people with arthritis make any effort to strengthen their legs? How many people under stress teach themselves how to relax? This is not just laziness. Certainly, the easiest way to deal with declining health is to take things, but it is a lack of a desire to be healthier that is at the root of the problem; a lack of appreciation of what good health feels like.

Those fortunate few who acquire an awareness of the essence of health in their youth maintain high standards for the rest of their lives. They enjoy being healthy. They feel any weight that they put on and they don’t like it; they sense any decline in energy and they fight it.

Most of all, they value their wellness and they guard it. They do not wait to become unwell before taking action. Indeed, taking action is a pleasure in itself, and that is why they are able to do it. No one will maintain an exercise programme for long if they do not learn to literally enjoy the feeling and the benefits. Dieting to lose weight is destined to fail if a preference for the appropriate foods is not developed. A heart attack will force a busy executive to find the time to exercise, but as long as he only exercises because he is under doctor’s orders, he remains at high risk of another heart attack. Real change will only come with a change in perspective on his health rather than his heart.

Is there hope then, for those who are blasé about their health? Let us put it this way: no one is going to be healthier who does not want to be healthier. But what is less obvious is that those who do not strive to be healthy are going to decline in health as sure as night follows day. Notwithstanding the claims of the merchants of tonics, herbs, cleansers and purifiers, health cannot be “preserved”. For the fortunate few, the good health with which they were blessed in their youth will last into their forties; for many, not even that long. Thereafter, their bad habits will catch up with them at an ever-accelerating rate.

No one in their fifties or older enjoys good health without effort. The good health of a few acquaintances might seem effortless to those struggling with pain, obesity, tiredness and stress, but so too does Brian Lara’s batting seem effortless. The wise know it is not. Batting well takes practice, a constant attention to detail, and a ceaseless search for higher standards. If someone you know seems to be getting away with a bad habit or two, you can rest assured that he or she has many compensating good habits.

There is simply no other way.