Health through self care

Each one of us needs to recognize and accept responsibility for our own health, and indeed our own happiness. As more and more people awaken to this reality, it drives the dawning of a new age – a much needed revolution in healthcare through self care.

Currently the medical model of the west, and much of the world, is a model based on sickness and not health at all. It’s absolutely marvelous when you are acutely sick, since it has its origins in the early 20th century when the greatest health issues were infection and trauma. Not so today. Today, we are dying from cancer, heart disease and the side effects of pharmaceutical drugs themselves. Today we are struggling with an epidemic of chronic disease, which we’re attempting to treat by suppressing the symptoms, rather than resolving the deeper, underlying causes.

What’s required is a model of healthcare that has self-care at the forefront. In ancient times, people paid their doctors to keep them healthy. This is the system that is needed today, with an added focus on the key element in the equation – empowering YOU. Our healthcare systems are breaking at the seams, and a key part of the solution is to take a long-term view, and reduce the future burden by proactively focusing on prevention of sickness and issues before they manifest.

Accepting responsibility for your own wellbeing does not mean that you’re on your own though. In fact, ironically, in order to master self-care and optimise your wellbeing, you need support and guidance. At SOAR, we’ve created a wellbeing ecosystem based on human and digital support:

We provide you with a Health Coach – one who has been trained in Functional Medicine, which is all about getting to the root cause of your issue and/or health risks. Health coaching in the U.S. is garnering impressive results, where outcomes in treating chronic disease are far better, for considerably less outlay.

The digital support is both an app and a desktop platform that are interactive. So your coach is able to co-create your personalized program of implementing small changes to your lifestyle – what you eat, how you exercise, how you sleep, your relationships, your attitude of mind and so on. All of this comes with notifications around your daily wellbeing planner, and your progress is then track-able through various metrics. With the digital element – including a digital wellbeing assistant, support is 24/7 and catalyzes the all-important daily engagement, without which, sustainable behavioural change is almost impossible.

Today’s health issues, such as stress, anxiety, obesity, diabetes, chronic fatigue and bodily pain all have their roots in poor lifestyle habits. The solutions therefore are lifestyle based.

So SOAR Wellbeing might also be called ‘Lifestyle Medicine’. Our vision of the future of healthcare is an integrated one, where ‘Lifestyle Medicine’ becomes the front-line of support – or primary healthcare, and western, allopathic medicine, is used when symptoms have become acute and there is a need for more drastic measures.

In many situations, patients have the choice as to how they want to approach their issue. For example, Type 2 Diabetes can be cured through Lifestyle Medicine, if the patient is prepared to accept some responsibility and work with a health professional to implement changes to their lifestyle. If not, then western medicine offers effective protocols that can also be employed.

Perhaps the most important change in perspective, where the paradigm really needs to shift the most, is the understanding that true wellbeing is not merely the absence of sickness, but rather a vibrant sense of aliveness in body, mind and spirit. In other words, there is a continuum of wellbeing, with sickness at one end, and way over the other side of the spectrum is profound wellbeing. In between, there are various stages of less than optimal wellbeing, long before the actual manifestation of sickness. It is here that we need to give most attention – the area of vulnerability, or potential for future sickness. 7 million people in the UK are currently pre-diabetic. Very many more are at risk of falling into this zone…unknowingly.

What if employers, the NHS, and society as a whole, supported us in early detection? That is, supported us in discovering our various health risks and imbalances, which could easily be revealed by medical symptoms questionnaires, blood tests, stool analyses and DNA tests.

Why is it so vital to take responsibility for our own wellbeing?

The answer to this question is beautifully demonstrated by considering the new area of medical science known as Epigenetics. In simple terms, this says that our genes are effectively switched on or off according to our state of mind, our lifestyle and our environments. In other words, our genetic blueprint is an expression of innumerable possibilities, very few of which are guaranteed. This being the case, if we don’t take charge, then we’re rolling the dice with our own health and inviting all manner of unpleasant outcomes. This is precisely the picture that we’re seeing in today’s world of ubiquitously present stress and chronic disease.

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