When asked, most people respond that their health is very important to them. When pressed for a number, the answer is almost always a 7 or higher. How about you? How would you rate the importance you have placed on your health up until now?
Now, remember, most people come to our office for the first time with a health problem or concern that is, unfortunately, usually…minimally, chronic. This means that their health has had to have been deteriorating for a while before consulting us. Well, here are the attributes of the different levels of health priority:
• Addicted-continuously looks for and adds self-destructive choices.
• Binges-makes occasional destructive lifestyle decisions-is in denial.
• Unconscious-doesn’t know a healthy choice from an unhealthy one.
• Tolerates poor health – “maybe it will go away” – “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”
• Seeks treatment only when they have a problem.
• Open to the prevention of future health problems.
• Makes an effort to maintain a healthy lifestyle.
• Consciously works at being healthy-makes healthy choices.
• Occasionally looking for and adding constructive healthy lifestyle changes.
• Continuously looking for and adding constructive healthy lifestyle changes.
It’s easy to see that for a health problem to become chronic, the importance placed on personal health could not have been higher than a 4 prior to consulting us. Starting care requires bringing your priority up to at least a 5. Unfortunately, what causes most people to raise the priority they place on their health is a serious health problem that doesn’t go away with their own approaches to correct the condition.
It should also be obvious that in order for one’s health to actually improve, the priority placed upon it must also be higher. So, the question for today is, “if I started living like a 7 instead of a 4 and the problems caused by me living like a 4 were not permanent, are they likely to go away? The answer…of course!
