Changing Habits
One step at a time to a new you
The importance of education in preventative medicine and changing habits
After reading a recent Body & Soul survey on the Health Habits of Australians, it made me realise how important health education is. Around 50 percent of the participants said they find it hard to keep up with information about what is healthy and what’s not. Which is no surprise as there are so many conflicting opinions on offer even amidst mainstream health research let alone from the myriad voices of internet and social media ‘experts’, biohackers and commentators. Even as a qualified health professional keeping abreast of the latest research and health trends is hard enough!
A naturopathic medical and health framework has always valued patient education, personalised support and coaching in helping each individual be responsible for their own health. Modern mainstream medical care is great for diagnostics, managing serious illness and surgery but is often lacking when it comes to providing lifestyle and diet advice, stress management tools and fitness information.
These are all things that keep us well and can go a long way in preventing many of the chronic health issues that plague our modern societies. Moreover, because doctors are often overstretched with time pressure and mostly lack proper lifestyle medicine and nutritional training, patients who could be treated early are falling between the cracks. People are also often left to googling their health issues, which has its own problems that I have written about before.
Barriers to Changing Habits
Having information is one thing, but implementing and carrying out change is another story entirely. I find the biggest barrier to people making actual change and creating new habits is being organised, motivated and having a firm strategy and plan to follow.
The survey also found this to be true, with around forty percent of the participants across all ages blamed lack of energy and motivation for their failure to engage in fitness. This all takes time and each person’s situation is unique. What will work for one person is not necessarily going to work for another. It seems we all know what we should be doing to at least some extent – with almost 80 percent of Australians surveyed agreed we need to be more active. The good news was that they also knew that exercise was important for both the body and mind.
Simple Lifestyle Changes
One part of my job I love is the ability to help create a personalised treatment plan that includes all the practical lifestyle changes required and not just prescribe my patient a bunch of supplements and herbs. The fact is, there are so many simple things to attend to when it comes to health promotion, prevention and changing habits.
It really isn’t that hard, but when we are time poor and super busy we can get disconnected from our bodies and then it is easy to put things off and ignore the early warning signs. Taking the time to stop, tune in to your body and assess where you are at and make some small but important changes can be the difference between really thriving and feeling great and merely surviving.
Remember little changes can go a long way to sustaining real progress and changing habits! Getting a regular health assessment, some routine blood tests and maybe some other relevant functional tests is a great thing to do every year or two, both so you have an up to date assessment to stay on track but also so you have a baseline of what your body normally sits at when well.
Everyone else’s normal is not always your normal. Knowing what you normally sit at for various nutrients and hormones can be crucial in detecting early changes to your baseline that might herald a storm on the horizon. As the old saying goes, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure!
