Title - Your health is not a problem to be solved. Tags - writing draft health
You may have health problems that you want to alleviate.
If you have a painful back, for example, you probably want to be free of the pain. There are some well-known remedies like medication, yoga, and physiotherapy that may relieve the pain. But there’s a good chance the pain will return.
It may be better to identify and address the root cause of your back pain. Why was it painful in the first place? Perhaps you damaged a muscle when lifting a box. If the box was too heavy, you could choose to avoid lifting such heavy boxes in the future. Or maybe it was a manageable weight but lifted with a bent, twisted back. If that’s the case, you can address the root cause by lifting boxes with a good posture in the future.
Ok, so you had a painful back. Now, you’ve alleviated the pain with medication. You’ve identified and address the root cause: no more lifting heavy boxes with poor posture. This reduces the likelihood that you’ll experience a painful back again. But by how much?
How healthy is your back after this episode? How strong is it? What condition are the surrounding muscles in? How do you feel?
The answer, assuming no other changes, is that your back in the same or worse condition than it was before the pain. Therefore, even if you avoid lifting heavy boxes, there’s a good chance that some other activity will trigger back pain in the future.
Your back hurts. You take pain relief. You avoid the activity that led to the pain. Your back hurts again. You take pain relief again. You avoid another activity that caused the pain. And the cycle repeats.
As time goes on, you may avoid more and more activities. This is a slippery slope to a sedentary lifestyle, which results in a weaker back, and a higher likelihood of suffering acute back pain and related health problems.
When you look at it like this, it’s clear that approaching a painful back as a problem to be solved is not very effective.
The reason why is simple: the absence of pain is not the same as health.
The absence of a kidney stone does not mean that your kidneys are healthy.
The absence of a muscle tear does not mean that your muscles are strong.
The absence of joint pain does not mean that your joints are healthy.
Most often, when you alleviate pain, or any other problem, your body is less healthy than it was before.
Yes, you may have health problems that need to be solved from time to time. If you have back pain, it’s horrible. Do what you need to do to relieve it. But approaching your health as a series of problems to be solved will not result in good health. So if you want to be healthy, start with a simple question:
What does optimal health look like to you?