The Swedish Chef Writes About Good Communication

“Wellness” has entered the vocabulary with a vengeance.

A term that once used to be reserved for natural food stores and yoga classes, it has escaped to infuse corporate culture. Many businesses have wellness coordinators and wellness plans. We are being told that we need to have well children and eat well and live well.

Well, well, well….

The emphasis on wellness is driven, at least in part, by the need to control health care costs. The thinking is that if we cannot contain the cost, we can contain the demand by keeping people well.

And it makes sense, up to a point. All of us would like to stay as healthy as possible for as long as possible, but until we have our first real scare, until we are forced to confront that we are not as fit, or as agile, or as flexible as we once were, most of us think about our health as an abstract concept: like saving for retirement.

Right now, the airwaves are chock full of infomercials for weight loss and exercise programs because their producers know that we have each made a promise to get fit and get healthy in the new year. The programs are full of chiseled this, tight that, and tanned everything: ideal physical types who exist only at Central Casting. They are hired to represent our hopes and our fantasies of who we think we are and who we can become if we buy whatever the announcer is selling.

The truth is that most of us have a relationship with our bodies that is based on fear: we fear going to the doctor, we fear pain, we fear losing our hair, we fear the truth. Coming in a close second behind fear is shame. We learn to be ashamed at an early age when we are unable to achieve mastery over our bodies: we have “accidents” and we get “boo-boos”. We are constantly being blamed for operator error. We don’t know how the our bodies work, we don’t have a lot of experience with it and we are constantly being blamed for doing it wrong. The same holds true at the end of our lives: we find ourselves losing control, having accidents and getting boo-boos. And where there is shame and embarrassment, there is secrecy.

Of course we try to delay the inevitable by looking for magic and shortcuts. Ninety days to a bigger, smaller, thicker, thinner, stronger, shinier, more natural-looking you. The books tell us that we’re too fat, we’re thirsty, we should eat wheat grass, we should take up ballroom dancing, we should lift weights, we should not lift weights, we should climb stairs, cross-country ski, take enemas, do yoga and breathe better. And, on the very next shelf are an equal number of books advocating for precisely the opposite.

With all of this noise, is it any wonder that doing nothing and taking our chances is the default position that the majority of us take when it comes to our health?

It doesn’t seem to matter what we do, we’re going to be wrong and our doctors are still going to yell at us.

Training through fear and intimidation is what we call “negative reinforcement.” Much like in the classic driver education training films, if we focus on the carnage and the wreckage and the blood on the highway then that will scare us straight and we will take better care of ourselves.

Being afraid of your doctor is surrendering your power in this most critical of relationships. If you are concerned about being scolded by your doctor for not passing on that extra slice of birthday cake then you might be inclined to not tell them about other symptoms you are experiencing. There are already significant limitations on your healthcare provider with respect to the amount of time they can spend with you and failing to be an equal partner in that all-too-brief conversation limits their ability to help even further.

Education is a good first step, but being aware is not always a good indicator that a person is going to take action, even if it’s in their interest to do so. I’ve been overweight my whole life and yet I still haven’t met a cookie that I didn’t like.

Most of us do not make major purchases without first having a clear idea of what we want out of the transaction. When we buy a car we at least know the color and number of doors we want. When we buy a television, we know what size and what features we are looking for. We should be no less involved in our purchase of healthcare. In 2007, the average American spent almost $8,000 on healthcare. Can you imagine the TV you could get for that kind of money?

The encouraging thing about the economic recession is that we have less money to spend on things and a unique opportunity to invest in ourselves. One of the virtues of having less is that we have to do more for ourselves. There is no “they” to step in and make our decisions and set priorities, there is only “us.” And as health insurance becomes a memory for more and more Americans, we are going to have to get involved, protect the health we have and prevent the illnesses we don’t.

This means taking a second look at what it means to be well.

Being well doesn’t mean that you have to look like those models on TV, but it does mean that you have to work on increasing your capacities. If you can walk up a flight of stairs without getting winded then you have to work on walking up two flights; if you can play with your grandkids for a half-hour without needing oxygen then you need to work on going for 40 minutes; and you can accept that at least one of the people who cut you off in traffic does not hate you personally then you can work on accepting that there might be two such drivers out there.

A key component in this personal wellness stimulus is attitude: being able to accept that your health—physical and mental—keeps changing and that you have to adapt in order to be well. For many of us, this process of continuous adjustment can be a challenge and for some it can be overwhelming. If you are looking for resources to help adapt, please call us and we will help you help yourself.

--Graham Campbell, Associate Director
Mental Health America of Licking County